Why Small-Town Investment Advisers Love Big National Banks

Anecdote from John Rafal, ranked by Barron's as Connecticut's #1 adviser for 2012:

When Rafal asked a recently widowed investor why she was moving her $135 million account to his firm from a big national bank, she was blisteringly candid. "My current advisors are arrogant, condescending and rude," Rafal says the client told him. "I hate them."

To the best of my knowledge, The Merrill Anderson Company doesn't have a single client who would be rude to a woman with $135 million.