Distant snows and lunchtime auction keep TD Ameritrade conference buzzing today
Some East Coast attendees rearrange schedules to avoid spending unplanned weekend in Orlando
4 min read- Storm threatens travel for many of the 1,200 RIAs attending TD Ameritrade conference.
- Auction of Bush/Clinton chairs raised $30,000 for Haitian earthquake relief.
- Bradley criticized wirehouse executives, fueling conference buzz and discussion.
RIABiz will add updates to this story if any RIAs wish to send us travel updates and e-mails on the last day of the conference. To everyone from the Northeast: Good luck getting home!
Some attendees at the annual TD Ameritrade conference in Orlando, Fla., are racing for the airports as an epic storm bears down on the Mid-Atlantic states.
Many of the 1,200 RIAs in attendance are from the Northeast. The storm is expected to hit hardest in Virginia, Maryland, Delware and southeastern Pennsylvania, according to the Weather Channel, and dump as much as 2.5 feet of snow in those areas.
But even those from locations not in the direct path of the storm may get stuck in airports as the travel ties up the Eastern seaboard. According to a spokesman for the Orlando International Airport, 33 flights have been cancelled today so far, mainly those heading into the Washington, D.C. area. 16 departures have been delayed and 59 arrivals have been delayed.
Tossed clothes
Even as they tossed clothes in suitcase and made calls to the airlines, the attendees were praising the conference, which offered free registration to RIAs and featured a panel by former presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton.
TD Ameritrade revs up to have the biggest three-day RIA rally in its history
Two attendees noted that rooms are still brimming with people at the conference despite weather concerns.
Adding to the last day’s excitement, Tom Bradley, president of TD Ameritrade Institutional, spontaneously auctioned off the two seats used by the former presidents, saying that TD Ameritrade would match the final bid price dollar-for-dollar and send the sum to Haitian earthquake relief efforts.
The president of TD told jokes and got a rollicking response of laughter and fast-rising bids for the chairs occupied by Bill Clinton and George Bush the day before. The leather bound chairs were decribed by an attendee as being of the Sherlock Holmes variety.
Thank you note
“You’re about guaranteed to get a thank you note from Bush and Clinton,” Bradley says. “You’ll definitely get a note from me.”
Story Timeline
After hanging at $10,000, the winning bid of $15,000 was made by Kenneth Kaltman, chief operating officer of National Compliance Services Inc. of Delray Beach, Fla. [and the boss of RIABiz columnist Les Abromovitz]. He went up on stage and tested out his winnings to great applause.
Kaltman has a Haitian friend, Savoir Joseph, who lost his sister, two nieces and brother-in-law to the earthquake in Haiti. It took Joseph 10 days after the earthquake to hear from his son, who was okay “I was in tears with him about it,” he says. “It hit me really hard.”
Tom Bradley and Fred Tomczyk team up to give forward-looking state-of-the-TD Ameritrade speech
The weather isn’t having a big effect on the TD conference but it adds a wrinkle.
“It’s a bit hectic here,” wrote TD spokeswoman Kristin Petrick in an e-mail around noon, noting that TD Ameritrade CEO Fred Tomczyk may be leaving in a few minutes. However, she said that there were still plenty of attendees, because the conference had drawn people from across the country.
By about noon, about half of the mutual fund wholesalers, which are largely based in the Northeast, had cleared out, said one RIABiz source on the spot. One attendee scheduled to fly out late this evening had his flight pushed up to mid-afternoon by the airline.
US Airways
I was scheduled to attend the conference Thursday night and Friday. On Thursday, I heard from US Airways that my flight out on Friday was canceled. I interviewed Bradley by phone and am getting e-mail reports from attendees as I watch the snowfall beginning from my home in Alexandria, Va.
Bradley gave a well-received speech in which he directed fiery criticism at an unnamed wirehouse executive that everyone knew was Sallie Krawcheck, president of global wealth and investment management at Bank of America Corp. He’s been describing the conference as the largest in the industry. There were more than 200 exhibitors there, according to TD Ameritrade.
Two big chairs
Kaltman is one of those exhibitors and he’s making his plans to head back to his home in South Florida. Weather is not a problem but he just won two big chairs in an auction. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with the chairs,” he says. [If they don’t fit in the house, they may wind up at his office.]
There’s a bigger immediate issue he needs to face after spontaneously donating $15,000 to win the chairs.
“Now I need to tell my wife what I wound up doing,” he says.
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