Company: SFB
Filing Date: 2025-02-26
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-027702
Chunk: 53

Company: STIFEL FINANCIAL CORP
Filing Date: 2025-02-26
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 53
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 additional professionals, our reputation, business, results of operations, and financial condition will be adversely affected. To the extent we have compensation targets, we may not be able to retain our associates, which could result in increased recruiting expense, result in our recruiting additional associates at compensation levels that are higher than our target range, and/or negatively impact our revenue growth. Further, new business initiatives and efforts to expand existing businesses generally require that we incur compensation and benefits expense before generating additional revenues.

Moreover, companies in our industry whose employees accept positions with competitors frequently claim that those competitors have engaged in unfair hiring practices. We have been subject to several such claims and may be subject to additional claims in the future as we seek to hire qualified personnel, some of whom may work for our competitors. Some of these claims may result in material litigation. We could incur substantial costs in defending against these claims, regardless of their merits. Such claims could also discourage potential employees who work for our competitors from joining us. We participate, with limited exceptions, in the Protocol for Broker Recruiting (“Protocol”), a voluntary agreement among many firms in the industry that governs, among other things, the client information that financial advisors may take with them when they affiliate with a new firm and the financial advisor’s ability to solicit clients of their previous firm. The ability to bring such client data to a new broker-dealer, as well as the ability to solicit clients, generally means that the clients of the financial advisor are more likely to choose to open accounts at the advisor’s new firm. Participation in the Protocol is voluntary, and it is possible that certain of our competitors will withdraw from it. If the broker-dealers from whom we recruit new financial advisors prevent, or significantly limit, the transfer of client data and the solicitation of clients, our recruiting efforts may be adversely affected. Additionally, we could experience a larger number of claims against us relating to our recruiting efforts.

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Our business depends on fees earned from the management of client accounts and asset management fees. We have grown our asset management business in recent years, which has increased the risks associated with this business relative to our overall operations. The asset management fees we are paid are dependent upon the value of client assets in fee-based accounts in our Private Client Group segment, as well as assets under management (“AUM”) in our asset management business. The value of our fee-based assets and AUM is impacted by market fluctuations and net inflows or outflows of assets. As our Private Client Group clients increasingly show a preference for fee-based accounts