Brown Investment Advisory & Trust Co. said yesterday that it has hired 14 brokers and nine support staffers for its full-service brokerage, putting the 3-month-old subsidiary ahead of its ambitious schedule.
In the fall, Brown launched the brokerage, Brown Advisory Securities LLC, and vowed to hire 18 brokers - plus support staff - during the year.
"We are exceeding our expectations for placements at this [point] in the new year," said J. Michael Connelly, the firm's chief operating officer. "We are very pleased with where we are."
Connelly, a former top executive at Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown, said a large number of the new hires came from his old company.
Brown Investment Advisory is a longtime Baltimore money-management firm.
The firm moved its headquarters last fall from its longtime location at 19 South St. to the Bond Street Wharf in Fells Point.
At the same time, it started its own brokerage operation, believing it could attract experienced brokers looking for an entrepreneurial opportunity.
The brokers it has attracted brought - or are working to bring - their clients with them, Connelly said.
The brokerage subsidiary will soon have $1 billion or more of assets under management, Connelly said. The parent company, Brown Investment Advisory & Trust, manages about $4 billion for its clients, the firm said.
Of the 14 brokers it has on staff, 12 work in Baltimore, with the other two in its Washington office, said Michael D. Hankin, chief executive officer of the Brown Investment parent company.
The other nine brokerage unit employees include administrative assistants, and legal and compliance personnel.
"And we are still hiring," Hankin said.
Connelly said the goal is to hire - at least - four more brokers.
Ideally, however, the firm would like to have 15 brokers in Baltimore, and five in Washington, necessitating the hiring of six brokers, Connelly said.
But, he said, he'll settle for the four.
"If we have 18 [brokers] and support staff in place by the end of the year, we'll never have to look back" and say the year was not a success, Connelly said.