Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Clients of Morgan Keegans financial services will no longer have a local office or adviser for their financial planning. The 911 College St. office on Fountain Square closed today.

The offices only two advisers, Libby Wilkins and Bill Hall, have decided to leave the firm and pursue other interests, according to a letter sent to clients Monday from James A. Parrish, the companys private client group president.

Morgan Keegan remains committed to our clients in the Bowling Green community, Parrishs letter said. … your account will continue to be handled with the highest level of personal service through our branch in Nashville.

Parrish is a Bowling Green native and opened the Morgan Keegan branch in 1988.

Morgan Keegan spokeswoman Kathy Ridley said the company operates about 60 main branches, or hubs, for its financial services, mostly in metropolitan areas. In most other cases, for smaller operations, the company would operate out of branches of its parent company, Regions Bank. There are no Regions Bank branches in Bowling Green.

This is a small office and we felt customers would be better served through the advisers in Nashville, Ridley said.

Ridley said area clients could still get the advising they need in a number of ways.

In general, most people will do business by phone, but we certainly do go out to meet customers. Were going to try to make this as convenient as we can for the customers, she said. We do have financial advisers that will continue to work with the clients whose accounts are being transferred.

Local client accounts will be transferred to the care of Bo Parrish in Nashville, son of James Parrish. Ridley would not disclose how many accounts are held in the area, citing the companys confidentiality rules.

Morgan Keegan was embroiled in an insider trading scandal in the late 1990s and into 2000. A former broker at the company was convicted in federal court and sentenced to 50 months in jail in October 2002. A local branch manager was also charged, but was cleared of any wrongdoing. The case was said to be the first ever to involve insider trading on the Internet.

Ridley said the episode was not a determining factor in the branchs decision to close.

I dont think this really does have anything to do with that, she said. Our company was not found to be responsible for any wrongdoing in that case. If we were to have shut down as a result of that, then we would have shut down several years ago.

We are continuing to offer our clients quality financial advice, she added. We are very selective of who we hire as advisers. Since Libby and Bill have been in the office for so many years and because of the size of the operation, we decided to close the office. Nashville is not that far away.

 Daily News ·813 College St. ·PO Box 90012 ·Bowling Green, KY ·42102 ·270-781-1700