Eight Over Eighty Aaron Eshman and Alfred Stern

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Aaron Eshman | 86 | Alfred Stern | 80

Senior Vice Presidents – Wealth Management, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management

Talk about a long business relationship: Aaron Eshman and Alfred Stern have been working together as financial advisers for 56 years.

Eshman started first; in 1950, he joined a financial services firm that Stern’s father co-founded. Eshman had wanted to go to medical school but lacked the grades to qualify. Instead, he pursued his other interest: the stock market. He heard about the Stern Frank firm, which at the time had a reputation for a then-new idea of managing money for high-net-worth clients.

“Very few young men were in the business at that time because they were all going into advertising and accounting. The average age at financial firms was 57,” Eshman said. “That gave me the opportunity to learn the business.”

Stern initially tried to avoid his father’s firm, seeking employment in the aerospace industry. But eventually, in 1957, he joined the family business.

In the 1960s, both Eshman and Stern had risen to the partner level, each with their own set of clients. In 1970, Eshman became chief executive and chairman. A few years later, he sold the firm to a rising star on the local financial scene: Drexel Burnham Lambert. When that firm collapsed in 1989 after the indictment of junk bond king Michael Milken, Eshman and Stern helped set up the L.A. office for New York financial firm Wertheim Schroder. That company was subsequently acquired by Smith Barney, which in turn was bought by Morgan Stanley.

All this merger activity has soured both Eshman and Stern on the future of the financial advice business.

“The biggest change with all this consolidation is that firms are now being run by businessmen that have no direct stake in the advice the employees give,” Eshman said.

“The entrepreneurship is gone,” Stern added.

It was only after the Morgan Stanley purchase in 2005 that Eshman and Stern became partners in Beverly Hills. The partnership became a good fit. Eshman had more experience in the fixed-income and bond markets while Stern had more experience analyzing individual stocks.

The partnership soon spread beyond the office.

“We’ve been very close to each other’s families and know each other’s children very well,” Stern said. (Eshman’s son Rob is editor of the Jewish Journal.)

Eshman and Stern share one other trait: Neither wants to retire anytime soon. Both say that the work is stimulating and helps give them a purpose in life.

“I’ve seen what happens to clients who retire: They get into weaker health situations,” Stern said. “I believe in keeping active and keeping my mind stimulated.”

– Howard Fine

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Howard Fine
Howard Fine is a 23-year veteran of the Los Angeles Business Journal. He covers stories pertaining to healthcare, biomedicine, energy, engineering, construction, and infrastructure. He has won several awards, including Best Body of Work for a single reporter from the Alliance of Area Business Publishers and Distinguished Journalist of the Year from the Society of Professional Journalists.