Calhoun Group moves to Merrill Lynch

“We left Morgan Stanley on (Nov.) 18th and joined Merrill Lynch that afternoon,” said John Calhoun, certified investment management analyst, first vice president/investments and wealth management adviser for Merrill Lynch.

The Calhoun Group didn’t go far, moving from Morgan Stanley’s Kansas City satellite office at 1531 E. Bradford Parkway in Springfield to the Merrill Lynch office at 1630 E. Bradford Parkway, Ste. J.

Making the move with Calhoun were financial advisers Dana Whittington, Ryan Patterson and Tracy Adler.

“We’ve been together a long time, all of us, and they’re the heirs apparent,” Calhoun said of his team.

January marks 25 years in the industry for Calhoun. Whittington has been with The Calhoun Group for 12 years, and Patterson and Adler joined seven years ago.

“As we come to Merrill (Lynch), we have developed a succession plan for me over the next 10 years and Dana and Ryan now have equity in the business. They will increase that equity position over time,” Calhoun said. “If something happens to one of us, the business opens and runs the next day and (is) just like it was.”

Merrill Lynch

The change makes Calhoun and his team employees of Merrill Lynch, where they serve as financial advisers for high-net-worth clients with portfolios of at least $1 million.

Anne Peterson is the manager of the Springfield Merrill Lynch office, which opened in 1979.

“It makes sense for the whole team to move because it’s the whole team that’s serving the clients,” Peterson said of the addition to her staff.

High-net-worth clients also were the focus of The Calhoun Group at Morgan Stanley.

“We left a number of clients behind in this move that were smaller accounts that could be better served by traditional financial advisers, therefore it would free up our time to take care of the larger accounts,” Calhoun said. “We pared the number of individuals down that we’re doing business with, and that was by design. It doesn’t mean anybody’s good or bad. It’s just a fact of business.”

Calhoun declined to share how many Morgan Stanley clients The Calhoun Group now works with at Merrill Lynch.

“That’s something that’s still in process,” he said, adding that some clients were invited to make the move, but the decision is left up to the individual clients.

Jim O’Brien, corporate spokesperson for Morgan Stanley, declined to disclose ways in which The Calhoun Group’s move has affected the local Morgan Stanley office, other than to say that the local office remains open.

“Morgan Stanley’s committed to the Springfield market and has a decent-sized office there and is going to continue to do so and try to retain all of the clients they’ve got and continue to attract new clients,” O’Brien said.

He declined to disclose how many employees the office now has.

Calhoun, Peterson and O’Brien all declined to share the circumstances surrounding The Calhoun Group’s move.

“There was a lot of negotiations that went into this. I’m going to stop short of saying months. Let’s just say there was a lot of preparation and there had to be a seamless transition for our clients,” Calhoun said. “We’re still doing the same thing we’ve always done. That’s one point we’ve made with clients. The only difference is the top of your statement says Merrill Lynch rather than Morgan Stanley.”

No additional support staff were needed at the Springfield Merrill Lynch office to accommodate The Calhoun Group.

The industry

Calhoun said he’s seen many changes in the financial services industry.

“The business has evolved over the past 25 years. Used to be we just bought stocks and bonds for clients and that sort of thing. It’s gotten away from that,” he said.

Financial services is more of a consulting business these days, Calhoun added.

“We do not really even buy stocks for people anymore. We do some fixed income ourselves, but we outsource with managers, maybe a large cap, small cap, midcap, international and so forth, and we do the asset allocation, consulting on a quarterly basis and then the reallocations. We’re really in the role of being a consultant and not a ‘stockbroker,’” Calhoun said.

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