Business

Smith Barney, RIP

(Reuters)

Hello, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.

Morgan Stanley yesterday officially laid to rest Smith Barney, the 75-year-old iconic Wall Street brokerage brand.

The investment bank run by CEO James Gorman owns a majority 51 percent share of a joint venture with Citigroup’s prominent brokerage firm Smith Barney, which it purchased during the height of the banking crisis.

However, top officials at Morgan Stanley opted to nix the legendary brand in favor of a new name: Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.

Gorman and head of the 17,000-strong brokerage platform, Greg Fleming, held a town hall meeting in Purchase, NY, yesterday, sources said, to discuss plans for the future of the franchise to which the company has hitched its success.

A series of ads meant to introduce the new wealth management platform are set to kick off today, said sources.

The firm’s brokers got a peek at the ad campaign as part of the presentation, where Gorman and Fleming stressed that although the brokerage entity is shedding the Smith Barney brand, it will continue to uphold its “client first” principles.

The brokerage franchise hasn’t been the rapid-fire moneymaker that Morgan Stanley initially predicted, because it has taken the investment bank much longer to place all of its brokers on one unified technology network.

A number of brokers have voiced frustration with the network, and Gorman and Fleming attempted to tamp down annoyance over tech glitches by urging patience and highlighting the progress that already has been made.

Fleming has vowed to squeeze mid-teen profit margins from the brokerage business.

In its heyday in the ’80s, Smith Barney became known for its advertising slogan uttered by actor John Houseman: “They make money the old fashioned way: They earn it.”