A recent Wall Street Journal on the continuing Morgan Stanley internal crisis provides an interesting statistic: the faltering wirehouse’s brokers pull in less than their peers. Morgan Stanley’s brokers make $462,000 annually in revenue per broker, compared to $740,000 for Merrill Lynch’s brokers and $540,000 for Smith Barney brokers (according to Merrill Lynch statistics.)

Bloomberg also picks up on the theme, going as far to call Morgan Stanley’s Dean Witter group an “also-ran.” According to Bloomberg, Morgan Stanley’s brokerage kept only 8 percent of revenue as pretax profit in 2004, lagging Merrill's 19 percent and Smith Barney’s 22 percent.

According to the Journal, Philip Purcell, chief executive officer, has pushed for more brokers and more sales. Purcell, with head of Dean Witter John Schaefer, have laid out a plan to increasing total brokers from 10,500 to 12,900 brokers.

"Our goal is to train 1,500 to 2,000 wealth advisers, specifically focused on clients with $1 million and above," Morgan Stanley spokeswoman Andrea Slattery told Bloomberg. "Eight hundred wealth advisers have already been trained."

"The ultimate goal is to sell the best performing funds to our clients," Slattery told Bloomberg. "If our proprietary funds can outperform those offered by competitors, our clients and shareholders do better and it's the best possible outcome for everyone."

Meanwhile, the Journal also reported on Monday that Morgan Stanley has circulated a memo lowering the maximum amounts of Class B and Class C shares that its brokers can sell.

According to the Journal, brokers can now sell a maximum of $25,000 in Class B shares over a 90-day period, down from $100,000 in a 45-day period. Brokers can sell $250,000 in Class C shares over 90-days, down from $1 million in the same period.  

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