Wells Fargo Advisors, the investment management arm of Wells Fargo & Co., experienced a net decrease of 173 financial advisers during the second quarter.

The bank said the net loss represents just 1.2 percent of total advisers and that 32 percent of that was because of retirements, writes Jeff Blumenthal at bizjournals.com.

[uam_ad id=”54865″]

Over the past 12 months, Wells Fargo Advisors experienced a net decrease of 301 advisers, or 2.1 percent, and 80 percent of that net was retirements. During that same span, Merrill’s adviser corps increased by 2 percent.

The attrition at Wells may be related to its plan to cut about 1,000 jobs and combine the wealth brokerage services and private client units.

“The key [for] us is to make sure we have the right transition in place, which [Wells Fargo Advisors President] David Kowach does, and to continue to have the right FAs and bonus structure, and to have things like Intuitive Investor [the company’s robo adviser], so that the new investor demographic continues to have options in addition to the traditional FA model,” Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan said.

To read the full story, click here.

[uam_ad id=”54875″]