Irvine Investment Firm Plans Aggressive Growth Strategy

A once obscure, nearly inactive Northern California brokerage announced plans Friday to become an Orange County powerhouse, growing from 50 brokers to 250 by the end of next year.

Bucking a downsizing trend, Waldron & Co. Inc. in Irvine will build itself up mainly by training new brokers every month, said its president, Cery Perle.

Perle said he and two partners took over the tiny, one-office San Rafael firm two years ago, moved its headquarters to Orange County and developed a training program designed to provide the company with the brokers it needs.

While the additional 200 brokers will work in Orange County, the company also expects to add staff to its other offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Charleston, S.C., and Westport, Conn. It now has about 50 employees in its branches, Perle said.

“We don’t want to go to 1,000 registered representatives,” Perle said in a telephone interview from Westport, where he is setting up research operations. “We have a great family atmosphere, and we don’t want to lose that. We’ll level off at some point.”

But growing that fast with young brokers requires a solid cash commitment up front and solid management, industry experts said.

“It’s a bold move to have that strategy,” said Russell Diehl, a longtime Newport Beach investment banker. “Either they are extraordinarily perceptive about the market or they’re in the wrong decade.”

Small brokerages 30 years ago believed that such growth would be progressive, he said. Today, an operation with 200 brokers would try to figure out how to use computer technology to increase revenue while dropping to 120 brokers, he said.

Diehl pointed out that Salomon Bros., one of the industry’s giants, has increased its revenue greatly in the last three years without adding employees.

Perle said he has faith in the company’s training program, which will be aided by a sophisticated computer and videoconferencing system connecting all the offices.

He also has a company that was formed in 1939, one of the earlier broker-dealers licensed by the National Assn. of Securities Dealers--a history ripe for marketing to the investing public.