What’s in a name?
In the topsy-turvy world of clearing brokerages, names change a lot-and many have disappeared. So one clearing brokerage was recently crowing that it had made it to a ripe age. First Clearing recently turned 30.
Like many other clearing broker-dealers, Wells Fargo’s First Clearing Correspondent Services has gone through a lot since the 1980s, when it was born. For instance, it has been part of Wells Fargo since that bank bought Wachovia Bank back in 2009.
Now with headquarters in St. Louis, but with offices in Richmond, Va., First Clearing’s traces its lineage back to the East Coast.
The brokerage’s history goes back to Butcher Singer, which in 1988 was acquired by Richmond-based Wheat First Securities. In 1998, First Union bought Wheat First Butcher Singer and renamed the clearing firm First Clearing Corp. The name changed to First Clearing Correspondent Services when it became a Wachovia Securities affiliate in 2001.
The headquarters in St. Louis was formerly the headquarters for the fabled retail brokerage A.G. Edwards. And First Clearing has numerous former Edwards’ brokers working for it today. That’s because Edwards was bought by Wachovia Securities, which was one of the largest independent broker-dealers in the United States.
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