LPL adds $600M UBS team in Tennessee

LPL is expanding its ranks in Tennessee as it welcomes another breakaway advisor from UBS.

On Thursday, LPL Financial announced the addition of a three-person team led by Austin Greer to its Linsco advisor channel.

Greer, who previously managed roughly $600 million in combined advisory, brokerage and retirement plan assets at UBS, has more than 17 years of industry experience, according to his BrokerCheck record.

He will operate his newly launched practice, Oxford Oaks Capital, from LPL's Linsco office in Franklin.

A second-generation advisor, Greer is accompanied by wealth advisor John Dunahoo, who has worked alongside him for over a decade, and Stephanie DePriest, a senior registered service associate who joined the group in 2020.

Earlier in January, LPL welcomed a father-son pair of breakaways from UBS, William “Bill” Bruen, Jr. and Andrew Bruen, to its broker-dealer network in New Jersey. The Bruens, who come from a century-long line of wealth management professionals, managed roughly $1.3 billion at UBS.

UBS has reportedly been struggling with advisor attrition challenges since the tail end of 2024, when it announced changes to its compensation structure that would impact roughly 6,000 US-based advisors.

“In the US, our efforts to align financial advisor incentives with our strategic priorities may result in a short-term increase in FA attrition, creating an additional headwind for net new assets in the coming months,” UBS chief financial officer Todd Tuckner admitted in a February conference call.

Apart from discarding a bonus for teams that differentiated it in the industry, sources said the firm made cuts to its pay grid that ultimately would impact its lower revenue producers. Significantly, the firm said it would no longer allow compensation on 12b-1 mutual fees as of January 1.

The risk of advisor churn was such that a mid-March report by Diamond Consultants, one of the industry's leading recruitment firms, went so far to say that "UBS will be the biggest loser of advisor share in 2025," projecting as many as 10 percent of all its US-based advisors may walk out the door.

It seems the firm is rethinking its approach. According to multiple reports this week, UBS is delaying the implementation of its advisor pay cut plan, and has been meeting with small groups of advisors to soften the hit to advisors and clients who've been participating in 12b-1 fee arrangements.