A top adviser with Voya Financial Advisors Inc. earlier this month left the firm to join another broker-dealer, which claims Voya placed damaging information on the adviser's employment record in the wake of her departure.
Allegations of “marking up” or “dirtying” brokers' employment histories when advisers jump to a new firm in order to hurt their job chances and careers are rife in the securities industry, which is highly competitive and relies heavily on firms recruiting new advisers. However, it is extremely rare for a B-D executive to speak publicly about the practice.
The adviser in question is Joyce Thomas, who resigned from Voya on Oct. 8 to join Independent Financial Group, an independent broker-dealer with 530 registered reps and advisers. Independent Financial had $118.7 million in revenues in 2014.
David Fischer, managing director of Independent Financial, said Voya is playing unfairly with Ms. Thomas' employment history, by placing damaging information on a U5 form filed with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc.
A form U5 is the securities industry uniform termination notice that is filled with questions asking the reasons why a broker left a firm.
"Voya has amended her U5," said Mr. Fischer. "A top executive at Voya and others were personally trying to get her to stay. When (Ms. Thomas) said no, they dinged her U5."
A Voya spokesman, Joseph Loparco, did not respond to Mr. Fischer's comment regarding Voya and Ms. Thomas' employment record. In an email to
InvestmentNews, Mr. Loparco wrote: "We have no comment other than to say we abide by Finra filing rules."
Finra rules state that no broker-dealer member or person associated with a broker-dealer shall file with Finra registration information that is incomplete or inaccurate so as to be misleading.
According to the U5, Voya wrote that Ms. Thomas "was permitted to resign while on heightened supervision for violation of firm policy regarding use of unregistered email.” According to the form, Voya answered "yes" to the following question on the U5: “Did the individual voluntary resign from your firm, or was the individual discharged or permitted to resign from your firm, after allegations were made that accused the individual of: violating investment-related statutes, regulations, rules or industry standards of conduct?”
Answering that question with a "yes" can can haunt advisers because it can prevent them from working in the securities industry. Broker-dealers are increasingly reluctant to do business with such advisers because of fear of drawing more scrutiny from securities regulators.
Ms. Thomas, who is based in San Gabriel, Calif., did not return a call to comment for this article.
"She's upset and does not agree with the accusations,” Mr. Fischer said, adding that Ms. Thomas and her team were among the top producing groups at Voya, with $300 million in assets and $5 million in annual production, known as gross dealer concession.
According to her BrokerCheck report, Ms. Thomas, who handles 2,000 clients, started in the securities industry in 1996. She had a clean employment record except for a customer complaint in 2000 that was eventually denied, Mr. Fischer said.
(More:
Joyce Thomas' BrokerCheck report)
“That's a great track record,” he said. “We're excited to have her.”
