Wirehouse

Wirehouse is industry shorthand for the largest full-service brokerage firms — national institutions with employee advisors, in-house products, and centralized infrastructure.

Where the word comes from

From the private telegraph wires that once connected branch offices to headquarters. The technology is long gone; the term stuck.

What the model provides

Substantial infrastructure. Research, technology, compliance supervision, marketing, a brand clients already recognize, and in many cases a materially higher starting salary or transition package.

The advisor’s job is advising and business development. Almost everything else is someone else’s problem.

What it costs

Ownership. The book belongs to the firm. An advisor who spends a career building relationships inside a wirehouse generally cannot sell that as an asset.

There are also constraints on product, technology, and communication that exist for legitimate supervisory reasons and are still constraints.

The recurring calculation

Whether the infrastructure is worth the ownership. That calculation has shifted over the last two decades as independent platforms have narrowed the capability gap, which is the whole reason the breakaway trend exists.