I am not sure they will abandon the ship. I look at them in a slightly different way. I look at them as pirates. After the financial crisis, they used that environment to get on board the "home mortgage" ship. Now they are using that ship to pirate the "wealth management" ships. As they pirate ship to ship they kick those off that aren't fighting well -- that are inefficient.
At first, we are put into the bowels of the ship where we stroke away -- hour by hour, day by day. H...ll, we can even die down there and they don't notice us until we start to smell after a few days. Ah ... the pirates life.. and death.
I can't help looking at the 10-Q personnel expense line. Here they are combining the efficiency expense with the wealth management acquisition expense. If they save on efficiency expense, that is get you to quit without having to pay you severance, they use that savings to acquire and pay for more wealth management firms. So by creating toxic environments, and getting you to give up, they will use that savings towards wealth management. That's their pirating.
Third quarter 2024 vs. third quarter 2023
Personnel expense decreased slightly due to the impact of efficiency initiatives and lower severance expense, largely offset by higher revenue-related compensation expense driven by higher fees in our Wealth and Investment Management business