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After opening an Annapolis, Md., office with 19 expatriates from Alex. Brown in May, Boston-based Tucker Anthony kept at it by luring a high-producing team from Wheat First Union to open a Baltimore outpost in June.
"We've increased our broker count in the past two weeks by 26 brokers who have average production of $500,000," boasted John Goldsmith, the chairman of Tucker's parent, Freedom Securities Corp., in an interview in early June.
But Goldsmith, whose company also owns Sutro & Co. in San Francisco and Lancaster, Pa.-based Hopper Soliday & Co., said Tucker was simply expanding its natural turf in opening the Maryland branches. "It fits our footprint," he said, noting that Tucker employs about 500 brokers at branches spread along the Eastern Seaboard and in Michigan and Illinois. "We're not going to let it get much bigger than that. Our strategy is to be like an old-line regional firm. We won't be humongous, and we won't be part of a big institution."
He was emphatic on that last point, carefully noting that the new Maryland branches are staffed with strong producers whose previous firms had been purchased recently by commercial banks. "I...