Dow Jones said that Graystone Consulting, an outgrowth of Citigroup’s Institutional Consulting business, has 30 teams in North America and that its 75 financial advisors have over $100 billion in custodied and non-custodied client assets.

Patrick Schussman, director of Graystone Consulting, was quoted as having said that a number of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney teams may be joining Graystone "in the near future". But the group does not have specific growth targets, as Graystone has a limited universe of potential clients and only certain financial advisors have the requisite qualifications to work there, said James Tracy, director of the Morgan Stanley Smith Barney’s Consulting Group.

The Graystone brand has been previously used within Morgan Stanley for Graystone Research, a unit focusing on alternative investment research and strategies, the news service said.

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney is 51 per cent owned by Morgan Stanley, after the transferral of 100 per cent of its Global Wealth Management business; Citigroup exchanged Citi Quilter and its Smith Barney units in the US and Australia, along with a $2.7 billion upfront cash payment, for a 49 per cent stake in the new joint venture. Citi Quilter has since been rebranded as Quilter.

Now a serious rival to brokerage giant Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney has 6.8 million client households, 18,500 advisors and approximately $14 billion in projected revenues, according to a joint statement from Morgan Stanley and Citigroup.