For 15 years, Kathy Roeser was an advisor with Lincoln Financial in Chicago. Through the years, her practice grew and she found that her products were limited. She decided that she owed it to her clients to look for a new place to set up shop.

She spent a year looking at independent firms before deciding on a wirehouse. In 2007, she went to Morgan Stanley as a senior vice president. The platform there offered her more in the way of investment solutions.

The wirehouse offered her something else as well-an escape from wearing too many hats. "I found on the independent side I had to be good at human resources, at compliance," she says. "It forced me to take my eye off the ball about what I was passionate about." At MSSB, she was no longer handling matters that took her away from meeting her clients' needs.

Roeser moved the day she resigned and all her clients eventually followed. She says her assets under management are about $450 million, and now her clients can invest in a wider range of products from hedge funds to real estate, which is something they had been seeking.

That was two years ago, and now she has a junior partner and two assistants. "It's a competitive world, and they know what's out there," says Roeser. "My clients were becoming more successful and they wanted more opportunities."

Roeser's experience-leaving the independent channel for the wirehouse world-isn't as unusual as it may sound. For the past several years, there has been a constant drumbeat for the migration of FAs leaving the overbearing wirehouses to gain independence. Yes, there are some who fit that pattern. But there is also a new refrain that says the deluge, the talent drain from wirehouses, never really happened. There are some, like Roeser, who found the reverse migration just as sweet. And more to the point, there are a huge number of advisors who also move "wire to wire."

So a mere eighteen months after the sky fell, is it really possible that life at the wirehouses isn't so bad?

Wirehouses Fight Back

Wirehouses controlled 48.5% of investment assets as of 2007, according to Boston-based research firm, Cerulli Associates. Registered investment advisors (RIA) plus dual registered channels, including fully independent firms and affiliates, came in at just 17.2%. But by 2012, Cerulli estimates those numbers for the wirehouses dipping to 40.7% of investment assets, with the other channels going up to 23.4%. "So there are certainly gains, and they're getting closer," says Scott Smith, associate director at Cerulli.

Still, the tsunami that was supposed to sweep wirehouse brokers onto the shores of the closest independent shop hasn't materialized. At least not yet. In fact, recent recruiting has waned at some independent shops. Chet Helck, Raymond James Financial's chief operating officer, said in a recent earnings report that recruiting in both its traditional employee channel and its independent arm had slackened from last year.

Still, the wirehouses aren't taking any diminution in advisor headcount lightly. Many of them are not averse to using golden handcuffs, or threatening brokers should they consider walking out the door with client accounts, or paying retention bonuses.

"It's also important to recognize that the wires have likely prevented any big flood by paying reps to move from one firm to the next, paying them to stay in some cases, and threatening legal action if they go," says Chip Roame, managing principal of the Tiburon, Calif.-based Tiburon Strategic Advisors, by email. "If those three 'strategies' were not happening, the flood may be in full force already."

The Enemy's Playbook

Being a full-fledged wirehouse advisor still holds a special allure, according to Barry Krouk, head of talent management for Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.

The wirehouses are actively developing different strategies to attract advisors from various channels and retain them. "In the last 12 months there has been a definite increase of independents [who used to work in a wirehouse] and now they want to come back," Krouk says. That's because the independent world has its downside. "Not only do you have to be good at being a good RIA, and at being independent, but you also have to be good at [keeping] the lights on. I'm not sure they were aware of all that went into running their own business."

While Krouk acknowledges that his firm still lures from other wirehouse competitors and points to Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo as the prime fishing ground, MSSB has also focused on creating a smooth adjustment for those moving from the independent side to the wirehouse as well. To start, a transition team is assigned for two to three weeks on average to help new brokers settle in without too many glitches. "We call it a SWAT team," Krouk says. "They're helping with tech needs, training, understanding platforms and services. I think it's a competitive advantage."