Prudential Investments continues to grow its sales team. The Newark, New Jersey-based firm has increased the number of external wholesalers covering wirehouses and continues to build out the team devoted to the independent broker-dealer channel.

In an interview with The MFWire, Stuart Parker, executive vice president and head of retail distribution, said the firm started the year with 24 external wholesalers in the wirehouse channel and now has 29. Prudential did not disclose the names of the recent additions to the team.

As for the indepedent broker-dealer channel, Prudential has currently has seven wholesalers in the field.

"We hope to get to 10 by yearend," Parker said. "Our goal is to get to 20 by the first quarter of 2011." Prudential is looking at both internal and external candidates, he added.

The MFWire reported in January on Prudential's push into the independent broker-dealer channel.

The seven externals already in place had all been part of a 17-member hybrid wholesaling force. The hybrids spend about 75 percent of their time in Newark and 25 percent on the road, Parker said.

"We moved seven of them to the field and we're maintaining 10 in the e-wholesaling desk," he said.

Why is Prudential pouring resources on the independent channel now?

"We're ready," he said. "Before, we didn't feel we had sufficiently developed our beachhead in the wirehouse channel and didn't want to allocate resources away from that yet. Now that we've done very well within the wirehouse channel, the timing seemed right."

Meanwhile, Prudential Investments, which rebranded from JennisonDryden in mid-February, is preparing to roll out additional advertisements in the next several months. Prudential Investments' first ad since the rebranding came out last month.

The firm is taking out ads in publications such as Barron's, Registered Rep, Investment Advisor and On Wall Street, said Judy Rice, president of Prudential Investments.

Prudential executives are not saying how much they spent on the ad campaign. 

Stay ahead of the news ... Sign up for our email alerts now
CLICK HERE