On the minds of top guns

I always like to end the year by polling top people in the financial services industry and asking what’s on their minds for the upcoming 12 months. Allow me to share some of their responses.

“These are crazy times,” said Mark Casady, chairman and chief executive of LPL Financial of Boston. “Let’s hope we get to a new level of confidence in the world.”

For 2009, Mr. Casady holds out hope that those firms that accept government money under the Troubled Asset Relief Program will use it to rebuild their businesses and reinvest in the troubled economy.

“On a personal level, I want to spend more time with my family and friends, and always remember what are truly the important things in life,” he said.

J. Thomas Bradley Jr., president of TD Ameritrade Institutional of Jersey City, N.J., has some lofty personal goals for 2009. He told me he is looking to lower his golf handicap by two or more strokes and wants to complete a marathon or a triathlon.

Good for him; I get tired driving 26 miles, let alone trying to run that distance.

On the business side, Mr. Bradley said, advisers are facing three major challenges: Client anxiety due to market conditions, a profitability squeeze due to lower revenue on assets and increasing costs, and a fast-evolving financial services landscape.

“At TD Ameritrade, our resolution will be to help them with these challenges through a series of initiatives that focus on maintaining outstanding service levels to advisers,” he said.

There is a need to emphasize retirement planning in 2009, said Joe Sweeney, president of financial planning, products and services at Ameriprise Financial Services Inc. in Minneapolis. “With the current economic challenges, saving for retirement may be more difficult, but it’s also more critical,” he said.

“Prior to the recession, our country’s savings rates were already at low levels. Although market volatility, corporate struggles and municipal deficits have dominated the front page, retirement planning is still a critical issue. This is especially important today, as individuals are increasingly bearing more direct responsibility for building and managing their retirement nest eggs,” Mr. Sweeney said.

“On a personal level for 2009, I want to get more exercise and make more healthy food choices,” he said.

Mark Tibergien, the chief executive of Pershing Advisor Solutions LLC in Jersey City, N.J., has similar thoughts.

“On a personal level, I always aspire to be a better friend, to be more informed and to make the time to enjoy my health and wealth,” he said. “I doubt that this New Year’s resolution will ever change.”

On a business level, Mr. Tibergien said, he would like Pershing “to become recognized by more sophisticated advisers as a clearly differentiated platform from the more retail-centered custodians currently serving [registered investment advisers].”

When reached for comment about plans for 2009, Joseph Deitch, chief executive of the Commonwealth Financial Network of Waltham, Mass., responded: “Jim, I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

On the business side, “we want to be prepared to take advantage of any and all appropriate opportunities that arise,” Mr. Deitch said.

“Toward that end, we’ve launched a companywide campaign called Strengthening the Core — a top-down and bottoms-up analysis of all that we do with an eye to raising the bar on service even higher,” he said.

On the personal side, Mr. Deitch’s big push is to finish writing a book he started a few years ago. “It’s half done, and the initial draft should be finished in the spring,” he said.

As for me, my hope is that government, corporate America and consumers get their collective acts together and whip this economy back into shape. We are too smart not to find proper solutions.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all our readers and their families a very happy and healthy new year.

Jim Pavia is editor of InvestmentNews.

Related Topics: Just Thinking