Merrill Lynch nabs $1.3 billion UBS team

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has picked up another UBS team, this time a four-person Houston-based group that manages $1.3 billion in client assets, according to the wirehouse.
Adviser Will Leven is bringing analysts Alora Anderson and Anthony Hoff with him, as well as client associate Ashlee Kegler. They will report to Bob Johnson, a regional managing director at Merrill Lynch.
UBS has not recruited many large teams of advisers lately. In fact, the company has seen a net loss of $3.8 billion in assets under management and 13 teams in the last quarter of 2015 alone, according to InvestmentNews‘ Advisers on the Move database.
LOSING ADVISERS
The Texas move highlights a trend of UBS losing advisers. In the second quarter, a UBS team of three advisers with $1.3 billion under advisement moved to Morgan Stanley Wealth Management in Los Angeles, and another UBS team of six advisers with $750 million under advisement that moved to Frontier Wealth Management in Wichita, Kan.
Earlier this year, Merrill Lynch scored another UBS team with $500 million in assets under management in Palm Beach, Fla.
A UBS spokesman declined to comment.
Mark Elzweig, an executive recruiter and founder of An eponymous firm, said the recent moves away from UBS are interesting considering that, anecdotally, advisers seem to like senior managers at the firm, but the migration is perhaps due to the fact that it is an overseas firm.
“One possibility is that a lot of the retail operations of foreign banks don’t seem like a sure bet at the moment, particularly in light of Barclays’ exit from the business,” Mr. Elzweig said, referring to last month’s Stifel Financial deal for Barclays Plc’s U.S. wealth management unit.
EASY TIME TO MOVE
Tim White, a managing partner of private wealth management at Kaye Bassman, said the fact that UBS is outside of the country could mean challenges for the firm, but he also said that Mr. Leven is emblematic of many other advisers across the industry right now. With the markets currently riding high for the most part and the fact that contracts wealth management professionals signed during the financial crisis are coming to an end, many advisers can move around more or less freely.
The latest movement of an advisory team from Merrill to UBS is simply the latest example of the wirehouse carousel.
“In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t make a difference, because UBS is going to hire somebody else,” Mr. White said. “It’s all a big soup.”
Merrill Lynch, on the other hand, has seen a positive net change of $843 million in the second quarter — it gained $3.6 billion and lost $2.8 billion under management — and has ranked third among the top brokerage firms by net change in AUM. It has also gained 16 more teams and lost seven, according to InvestmentNews‘ Advisers on the Move database.
Late last month, the wirehouse picked up a $750 million team from Barclays Wealth, also based in Houston.
According to Mr. Elzweig, a lot of the bigger teams will continue to move around.
“The thing about a big team is they control their clients, and big teams are never afraid to move,” Mr. Elzweig said.