Top rep in AIG B-D network joins Sterne Agee

A star financial adviser for Royal Alliance Associates Inc., who courted controversy last year when she criticized the firm's parent company, American International Group Inc., has joined Sterne Agee Financial Services Inc.

Meg Green on Aug. 31 left Royal Alliance, part of the Advisor Group broker-dealer network owned by AIG.

Ms. Greene is perennially listed by Barron's magazine as one of America's top 100 female advisers, and her eponymous firm manages $650 million.

CONFERENCE ISSUES

A Royal Alliance adviser for 28 years, Ms. Green last year made clear that she was disenchanted with Advisor Group's plans to hold one joint conference for its three broker-dealers instead of a conference for each.

Ms. Greene intepreted that as an effort by AIG toward more sharing of services at the three B-Ds.

“You just saw it: AIG was moving towards merging the three broker-dealers into one. But we don't want to swim in the public pool; we want to be with our own,” Ms. Green told industry news website AdvisorOne.

“We don't want to be the AIG Advisor Group; we want to be Royal Alliance. We're bigger and smarter and do more business than” FSC Securities Corp. and SagePoint Financial Inc., the other two broker-dealers in the network at the time, according to the website.

In an interview last Monday, Ms. Green said that she had made those comments privately to a reporter and apologized for them later.

“I was skewed. I apologized for the rotten way it became a headline,” Ms. Green said.

“I felt horrible about it later,” she said. “It's not me.”

Gil Weinreich, editor-in-chief of Research, which is published by the same company as the AdvisorOne website, disagrees with Ms. Green's version of what happened.

“Meg Green did not make those comments "privately' — it was all on the record,” Mr. Weinreich wrote in an e-mail. “In fact, we have the entire interview recorded on tape. That's why we stood by our story. She was not "skewed' but rather hoisted herself on her own petard.”

As for leaving Royal Alliance, Ms. Green said that the firm “has been stand-up.”

“They didn't want us to go. This was not their call,” Ms. Green said.

She said that her firm has worked closely with Sterne Agee over the past eight months to build the new platform and likened the firm to the “new kid on the block.”

Advisor Group spokeswoman Linda Malamut said: “We wish Meg Green and her team the best. Advisor Group continues to grow and recruit talented advisers to our firms. We are absolutely committed to Royal Alliance, FSC and SagePoint Financial, and their individual cultures, and are eager to welcome Woodbury Financial [Services Inc.] and their advisers when they join our organization.”

Ms. Green said that she discussed the importance of firm culture with AIG chief executive Robert Benmosche and Jay Wintrob, executive vice president of domestic life and retirement services, but their concerns lay elsewhere.

“They didn't understand culture; they understand business,” Ms. Green said.

“I was looking for culture, but it was dissipated” at the AIG broker-dealers, she said.

“Bigger is good for them, not for us,” Ms. Green said.

Sterne Agee, which offers trust services, research and investment banking, is the boutique-type of self-clearing broker-dealer she was seeking, she said.

“We're really the first ones on this part of [Sterne Agee's] platform,” Ms. Green said.

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Related Topics: American Funds Distributors, Wealth Management