New shingle. (Wall Street West).

A fixture in the Los Angeles investment banking scene for almost 20 years, Scott Wendalin, has hung out his own shingle, with the name Prospect Financial Advisors LLC.

Wendalin was formerly head of investment banking and a board member with Sutro & Co. Inc., which last year was swallowed up by Royal Bank of Canada.

The Harvard-educated Wendalin said his investment banking advice is free of institutional conflicts. "The investment banks have become very product focused," Wendalin said. It's a polite way of saying that investment banks only want to serve clients that need stock deals or bond deals underwritten, or help with mergers and acquisitions.

"We will tell a client that maybe nothing needs to be done, or that a merger is a bad idea, or that it is the wrong time to sell," Wendalin said, citing three outcomes that generally mean lower fees for investment bankers.

Does Wendalin feel any sorrow that the 144-year-old Sutro name has vanished? "Not really," he answered. "That's just the way the business is going these days. The Royal Bank of Canada wanted the distribution network to flow (stocks and bonds) through, and Sutro had it. So they bought Sutro. It's business."

Contributing columnist Benjamin Mark Cole writes about the local investment community for the Los Angeles Business Journal. He can be reached at [e-mail].