Wells Fargo is beefing up its advisory ranks with the addition of 10,000 financial advisers over time, writes Dow Jones Newswires today.
The swelling number will allow the San Francisco-based bank to become the largest financial advisory house. Its current force of 15,000 advisors ranks it third in size behind the armies at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney joint venture and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, which reported 18,135 and 15,006, respectively, at the end of the fourth quarter.
A Wells Fargo spokeswoman declined to specify the hiring timeline, according to the news service's report. In an earlier interview with Reuters on Thursday, the David Carroll, a senior executive vice president overseeing wealth management, described it as a long-term goal and that part of the plan is to aggressively grow the number of brokers stationed at the bank's retail branches.
The bank disclosed last month plans to hire 1,400 advisers this year, approximately 1,000 will be recruited while the remainder will be trained.