Joe Moglia: We are trying to grow our assets. As you breakdown the assets, the assets per take per client or per count would be the most simple measurement, as far as that goes. We think that all the $100 million are smart well thought out of investments and things that we should have already been doing or should be doing now. When you look at what we are trying to do, we are trying to gather assets and you continue to keep an eye on how we are doing as far as the asset side of our revenue base goes and what that looks like on a per capita basis.
Michael Hecht (Banc of America): Are you looking at potentially tweaking your compensation model?
Joe Moglia: The majority of our compensation today for our sales people tends to be variable and the reality is we look at compensation all the time. Since compensation is the one number factor in helping determine the behavior of our associates the analysis of how we do that is something that it is discussed and looked at on regular basis. We are doing that, we will continue to do. We will continue to invest money in training and we feel good about the quality of the sales force that we have today.
Michael Hecht (Banc of America): Is Fiserv the something which you think is strengthening your position in the RIA business?
Joe Moglia: At the Fiserv our buying was $28 billion in assets.
Michael Hecht (Banc of America): Where did you RIA assets end in the quarter and how is that compared to the last quarter?
Joe Moglia: We do not disclose at the span of the year, we usually give an update where that stands on annual basis. We will do that in October.
Michael Hecht (Banc of America): Do you have any updates on Amerivest and any traction you are seeing there?
Joe Moglia: It is not big enough to break out or talk about from that prospective, but the key to Amerivest in the past was while we would try to market it, there were too many questions associated with it. For example, what does diversification mean? What does it means to rebalance? It does require an educational sales call. Now that the sales force is on one platform we have seen a pick up in interest and business associated with Amerivest, and in our product area with Dave Kelley and his team, we continue to try to expand and improve the whole of Amerivest content. The ability to provide portfolio allocation services, not just through EPS, but a number of investment products has also stopped that they were playing and working within. Amerivest could well be a differentiator product, and we are starting to feel good about the traction that we are seeing.
Michael Hecht (Banc of America): You mentioned the State tax that has just lowered this quarter. For the fourth quarter rate will you be using the 37.5 you had this quarter or the year-to-date rate, 38.5?
Bill Gerber: We are still looking at 38% to 39%.
William Tanona (Goldman Sachs): Your investment spends jumped to about 80% of what you thought you are going to spend. Are you going to push that higher and what you are willing to invest near term?
Joe Moglia: We have been thoughtful about where we are going to allocate the $100 million, and we got to see some results from the $100 million. If that $100 million started to pay off and we have found certain areas we would be getting a tremendous return from, we would not hesitate increasing those areas. By the same token, we found that there were some areas of spend that were not doing as well. We would look at being able to shut that down or reallocate some place else. Do not assume an increase in the $100 million, but we would do that if we thought that made cash.
William Tanona (Goldman Sachs): How much timeframe do you think you would give before you make those types of decisions?
Joe Moglia: It would be over the span of next 12 months.
William Tanona (Goldman Sachs): Did your guidance include the FISERV acquisition or was that excluding the FISERV acquisition?
Joe Moglia: It should include the FISERV acquisition.
William Tanona (Goldman Sachs): What are you seeing specifically in the RIA business and what the attrition rate might have been since doing the deal with Waterhouse?
Joe Moglia: We do not break the attrition in RIA out specifically, but the attrition in the RIA business has always been good.
Matthew Fischer (Deutsche Bank): The expense investment for growth had an increase in 10 million. Is the increase compensation related or is the full $20 million compensation related?
Joe Moglia: The bulk of that is compensation related. |