‘Sallie, Sallie, Sallie!’

“Sallie, Sallie, Sallie!!!” (picture Sarch whining, like Jan Brady complaining about Marcia all those years ago). The calls, texts and e-mails started coming on Tuesday night and lasted all day on Wednesday. “Did you hear about Sallie?” “What do you think about Sallie?” Every reporter wanted a comment and every Adviser and Manager wanted to talk about this before talking about anything else. And it was always “Sallie”, never “Krawcheck.” Is this big news because Ms. Krawcheck has somehow achieved first name recognition status like Madonna and Cher?
Though Ms. Krawcheck had two separate stints running wealth management at Smith Barney, sandwiching her time as CFO at Citi (has anyone ever examined to what extent Citi’s balance sheet became overleveraged during her time as CFO? But I digress.), many Merrill Advisers questioned her leadership abilities because she herself had never been a retail broker. That said, many also praised her ability to connect with top Advisers as well as large clients. And criticism of her never included her work ethic.
There will be many articles over the next few weeks which will dissect her tenure at B of A. Maybe one day we will see a tell-all book about her career. What perplexes me is why some seem to think that this is an earth shattering day in the history of retail brokerage.
One possibility is that Ms. Krawcheck was arguably the most powerful woman on Wall Street. In an industry where less than 20% of the Advisers are women, a woman had risen to the top of two of the most venerable names in the business. So, her departure, whether pushed or voluntary, is, of course, big news.
But it won’t matter next week.
Next week, Merrill Lynch will still be part of Bank of America. Bank of America will still have mortgage woes which are keeping its stock below its supposed book value. And Merrill Lynch Advisers and their clients will still be reading about B of A’s problems in the newspapers. You see, next week and for the foreseeable future, B of A’s woes are a big story; the lawsuits are not being settled or adjudicated anytime soon. As one Merrill Adviser told me: “Sallie’s leaving just gives my clients another thing to talk about which is not a positive, just like the lawsuits. Instead of spending all of my time helping my clients with solutions, they now think that part of the problem is the firm that I work for, the place where they have their money. And that sucks.”

Related Topics: Bank Of America Corp., Banking, Merrill Lynch