Morgan Stanley (MS) Cutting Up To 300 Brokers, Trainees

Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) plans to fire 200 to 300 poorly performing brokers and trainees, a person familiar with the plan said on Wednesday.

The company's Morgan Stanley Smith Barney unit would remain the biggest brokerage force in the U.S. after the cuts, with about 17,800 financial advisers. The New York-based firm ended 2010 with 18,043 brokers.

A spokeswoman at Morgan Stanley declined to comment.

The cuts come as Morgan Stanley moves to imprint its culture more strongly on a brokerage force that almost doubled in size in June 2009 when it took a controlling stake in Citigroup's Smith Barney brokerage network.

One marketing benefit of culling the lowest producers is that firms can quote higher average revenue generation per broker in reports to investors and in recruiting. The average Morgan Stanley broker last year generated $742,000 of revenue, up from under $700,000 in 2009.

Morgan Stanley closed Wednesday at $28.72, down $0.08, or 0.28 percent.




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