It was a short phone call with potentially long-lasting ramifications.  

Last summer, Wells Fargo’s then-head of global manager research, Greg Maddox, held a roughly 10-minute conference call on which he told the firm’s fund analysts about wide-ranging cutbacks across the bank, according to sources who requested anonymity.  

The cuts were portrayed as tough but unavoidable measures, but few details about how they would affect the manager research unit were shared on the call, with analysts ultimately told to speak to their line managers for more information.  

A few days before the call, some analysts had already found out how the cost cuts would affect them. In late June, four senior analysts on the research team had been given 30 days to find new positions internally at Wells or find work elsewhere. They could remain with the company beyond this time but not work on the research team. News of these departures spread following the conference call. 

Citywire understands that these four gatekeepers were Scott Froidl, Andrew Beatty, Enzo Egidi, and Keith Parker. 

All four have gone on to land roles as senior gatekeepers elsewhere. Froidl and Beatty decamped to LPL, where they both hold the title of senior research analyst. Egidi is now a senior analyst at Stifel, and Parker joined AssetMark as a client portfolio manager. 

According to a source familiar with the situation, news of the exits of these respected senior analysts hit morale and sparked a slew of further departures from the gatekeeper team at Wells.

One person familiar with the call remembers it being particularly tough to then learn of four senior analysts losing their jobs shortly afterwards because of what it could mean for their own prospects of professional advancement at Wells Fargo. 

‘If this is where your career ends,’ the person remembered thinking, ‘Where does that put me?’ 

Research by Citywire found that at least 12 analysts have left the firm since last July, including the four that were let go at the time of the call.

A spokesperson for Wells Fargo declined to comment. 

The 12 departures mark a stark change in fortunes for the Wells research team, which five years ago embarked on a hiring spree in which it added some 11 gatekeepers as part of plans to boost coverage and help the bank’s various advice channels with the then incoming fiduciary rule. The Department of Labor’s proposal was since vacated by the Trump administration but had spurred many brokerages to bolster due diligence of funds on their platforms.  

Egidi was one of two senior analysts to join Wells as part of that 11-person hiring spree in 2017. The other, Stacey Townsend, also has left Wells Fargo, joining Morgan Stanley in March, where she is now a senior portfolio strategy consultant.  

In all, eight of those 11 recruits from 2017 have since left Wells Fargo, according to a review of LinkedIn profiles and past statements from the firm, with five of them leaving since the phone call in July 2021.  

These include the previously unreported departure of Stephen Vasend, who left last fall to become an ETF product architect at BlackRock, after nearly five years at Wells Fargo. 

Other exits, all previously reported by Citywire, include: 

• Daniel Brown, now at Stifel 
• Caleb Tuten, now at Veeva Systems 
• James Ritzema, now at Baird 
• Brian Wismar, now at 3Degrees Group 
• Chris Martinez, now at Charles Schwab 
• Kyle Lane, now at TIAA 

Whereas other wirehouses appear to have maintained the increased due diligence resources they won due to the fiduciary rule, Wells Fargo’s fund research team was hit by cutbacks made across the bank’s business as part of a restructure necessitated by numerous scandals and penalties, not least the $3bn it was fined in 2020 for creating false current accounts.  

CEO Charlie Scharf, who was appointed in 2019, faced cutting $8bn of costs from the bank’s annual budget. In 2020, it was reported that the bank planned to lay off up to 20% of its then headcount, or as many as 60,000 employees. 

In January, Maddox left his role as head of global manager research, to take a new position within Wells Fargo. Earlier this month, Wells announced his replacements, with Sage Lincoln and Kevin Sullivan taking on the role Maddox had held since 2005.

According to one source familiar with the July 2021 call, there was a perception that Maddox had worked to shield the gatekeeper team from the cuts for some time. He could not hold out forever.