CEO Ron Kruszewski made waves when he announced the $1 trillion goal for client AUM for the wealth division at Stifel. Growing existing clients and recruiting are going to be two main goals as to how Kruszewski outlined how they plan to get there. Currently, the 2,300 brokers at Stifel manage less than half of their trillion-dollar target. Recruiting has been a critical part of their current growth growing by almost a quarter in the previous year, but competitors like Raymond James had almost four times the broker headcount when it crossed the $1 trillion AUM mark.

FINSUM: Recruiting shapes how a company drives revenue as higher-end recruits, making many stories, have wealthier clientele.

Many individuals overlook the value of a health savings account as they are preparing for retirement, particularly as healthcare costs are rising rapidly. High deductible plans have a number of tax advantages because they grow tax-free and can be used for out-of-pocket expenses well into retirement. Additionally, these HSA accounts come with many of the options and more than traditional retirement accounts and are easily moveable. Finally, these accounts have no rollover cap if funds move to an additional year.

FINSUM: HSAs are a great retirement vehicle, however, chronic investors with chronic illness should avoid high deductible plans that HSAs benefit.

Wells Fargo has been one of the dominant figures trying to improve advisor headcount and it looks as though some of those efforts are paying off. Steven Tahn is moving from JPMorgan, where he has been since 2012, and bringing $2 million in GCD as well. Wells has had a series of declines for the last couple of years and has fallen short of targets when it comes to recruiting and retention. However, signs of improvement are there and their series of penalties and bonuses for client retention could be starting to pay off.

FINSUM: We’ll be keeping our eyes on the biggest changes in recruiting and retention in 2022 among financial advisory firms.