Last October, it announced a deal to acquire Chicago-based Ziegler & Company’s wealth management business, with 57 advisors and $4.8 billion in client assets. A year ago, Stifel completed the acquisition of City Securities Corp., with 40 private client advisors in eight offices in Indiana and $4 billion in assets. And in 2015, Stifel bought the U.S. business of Barclays’ Wealth and Investment Management, which at the time had about 180 financial advisors with $56 billion in client assets.
Last year, Stifel got out of the independent contractor business, selling the independent brokerage it picked up from a 2015 acquisition of Sterne Agee.
Kruszewski said he anticipates that the SEC will come up with a fiduciary standard that is more workable than what the DOL proposed.
“I think the SEC recognizes that the pay-as-you go [model] versus a straight fee benefits clients in certain situations [and that] you shouldn’t favor one business model over the other,” he said.
And with the new tax law ending the deductibility of advisory fees, “that certainly should factor into what’s in the best interests of clients,” he said.
The tax changes may also spur more corporate financing business, Kruszewski said. “We see a lot of discussion [by corporate clients] surrounding the financing of investments and restructuring balance sheets” to reduce non-deductible debt, he said. “And I think a lot are thinking that they have to make investments to remain competitive.”
Stifel’s institutional business also saw record net revenues. Revenues came in at $332 million for the fourth quarter, up 31 percent year over year, and $1.1 billion for the full year, up 10 percent from 2016.