Feb 23, 2005 By James Pletcher Jr. 4 min read

The sale of a local brokerage house will bring more benefits to its customers than ever before, its officers said. On Tuesday, Parker/Hunter Inc. announced its sale to Janney Montgomery Scott LLC, a Philadelphia-based brokerage that dates to 1832.

Neither firm has disclosed terms of the sale.

“There is an air of excitement in this office,’ Stephen A. Peters, senior vice president and Uniontown branch manager, said.

The local office, he added, which has eight professionals and four administrative persons, will remain open, Peters said.

He explained negotiations between the two firms have been going on since last May.

“We have had offers before and we always said we weren’t for sale. But our respective chairmans serve together on a Wall Street round table and when Janney made the offer, our board said, ‘Let’s take it to the next level,’ and see what they are talking about,’ Peters said.

Himself a board member, Peters explained the two firms “share the same vision, the same values and the same culture.’

He said Parker/Hunter’s services also neatly dovetail with those Janney offers its clients.

“This is going to be beneficial for our clients, beneficial for our employees and beneficial for our shareholders,’ he said.

“They bring a lot to the table that we don’t have. They have a very large research department and a trust company.’

Parker/Hunter operates 21 offices staffed by about 130 financial advisors who serve about 45,000 clients in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. Janney has 80 offices, about 900 financial consultants and a national client base of more than 325,000 people. Its offices stretch from Massachusetts to Florida.

“This will make us about the 17th largest such firm in the country,’ Peters added.

Parker/Hunter was founded in 1902.

The Uniontown Parker/Hunter was founded more than 70 years ago and has occupied offices in the National City Bank Building and for the past decade at 43 S. Beeson Boulevard.

“This was originally a Kay, Richards & Co. office,’ Peters said.

Kay, Richards opened in 1902 in the Union Trust Building in downtown Pittsburgh. In 1928, McKelvy and Co. began assisting clients with investments, just one year before the worst crash in stock market history.

“Weathering this even and after 40 additional years as independent organizations, the two firms saw an opportunity to merge into an even larger presence in 1969, at which time Parker/Hunter Inc. was introduced to the community,’ according to the brokerage firm.

“Our employee-owned company has witnessed and survived two world wars, the 1929 stock market crash and ensuing Depression, multiple recessions, other financial upheavals and, recently, terrorism. We have good reason to celebrate a century of service to clients and anticipate another 100 years of strong client and community relationships,’ Robert W. Kampmeinert, Parker/Hunter chairman and chief executive officer, said.

Upon closing, which is subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals, Parker/Hunter will operate as a subsidiary of Janney until later this year, when it will be completely absorbed, James Wolitarsky, Janney’s chief executive officer, said.

Janney’s parent company, Penn Mutual Life Insurance Co., is among the 15 largest mutual insurance companies in the country, with more than $12 billion in assets.

According to the Associated Press, Janney, which has a capital base of more than $300 million, was one of seven regional brokerage firms to be fined last year by federal regulators for allegedly failing to disclose payments for issuing research on certain companies.

Investment firms are required by law to disclose such payments to the Securities and Exchange Commission. From 1999 through 2002, the seven brokerages received payments from other investment firms in exchange for issuing research on companies for which the investment firms were underwriting sales of securities, in some cases going public, according to the SEC.