Janney Montgomery Scott Poaches $1 Billion Merrill Lynch Team From Delaware

Janney recruited a $1B Merrill Lynch team from Dover, Delaware — the second major raid on the same office in 18 months.

Janney Montgomery Scott has recruited a billion-dollar advisory team from Merrill Lynch's Dover, Delaware office, continuing a pattern of targeted raiding that has effectively hollowed out one of Merrill's key mid-Atlantic locations.

The Warren-Fantano team, which manages approximately $1 billion in client assets and generates an estimated $5.3 million in annual revenue, made the move in February. It is at least the second major team Janney has pulled from the same Dover office in the past 18 months, leaving Merrill with only a handful of advisors at that location.

Janney, a Philadelphia-based regional firm with approximately $160 billion in client assets under administration, has been punching above its weight in recruiting. The firm added 33 experienced financial advisors in 2025, bringing over $6.5 billion in new client assets from firms including Ameriprise, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Raymond James, RBC, Truist, UBS, and Wells Fargo.

The appeal for advisors moving to Janney is a combination of higher payouts, fewer corporate mandates, and a culture that many describe as more advisor-friendly than the major wirehouses. Janney's compensation grid tops out at higher effective rates than Merrill's for advisors in the $1-5 million production range, and the firm imposes fewer restrictions on how advisors run their practices.

For Merrill Lynch, the Delaware losses are part of a broader challenge. The firm's 2026 compensation plan doubled the "small household" threshold from $250,000 to $500,000, effectively telling advisors that clients with less than half a million dollars are not a priority. While the change was intended to push advisors toward larger clients, it has also made some advisors feel that Merrill is deprioritizing the relationship-driven approach that built their practices.

The Dover office situation is particularly instructive. When a firm loses multiple teams from a single location, it creates a compounding effect: remaining advisors see their colleagues leave, hear about better economics elsewhere, and begin entertaining their own conversations with recruiters. The gravitational pull of a depleted office can accelerate departures.

Merrill's parent company, Bank of America, has been investing heavily in its wealth management technology and platform capabilities. The firm's integration with BofA's banking products — mortgages, lending, credit — gives it a competitive advantage with certain client segments. But for advisors who feel constrained by the wirehouse model, those advantages are not always enough to offset the economic and cultural differences offered by firms like Janney.

Industry data shows that regional firms like Janney, Stifel, and Baird have been steadily gaining market share from the wirehouses. These firms typically offer compensation packages that are 10-20% more favorable than the Big Four wirehouses for advisors producing between $1 million and $5 million annually, according to analysis from Financial Advisor Transitions.

The recruiting economics for a team of this size are straightforward. At Merrill, a $5.3 million producer might take home 42-45% of production after grid payments and fees. At Janney, that number can exceed 50%, representing an annual income increase of more than $250,000 before any transition bonus.

What to watch: Janney has publicly signaled that 2026 recruiting targets are even more aggressive than 2025. The firm's sweet spot — advisors producing $1-5 million annually who want a full-service platform without wirehouse bureaucracy — represents a large addressable market that the major wirehouses are struggling to defend.