Bank of America Merrill Lynch hires $675M adviser team from Morgan Stanley

A team of financial advisers on New York's Long Island that manages $675 million of assets has joined Bank of America Merrill Lynch from Morgan Stanley. John Gatto, Kenneth Gatto and Matthew Hughes in Jericho, Long Island joined last month, according to Bank of America spokeswoman Susan Atran. The Gatto Hughes Group produced $5.3 million of revenue last year, she said. Christine Jockle, a spokeswoman for Morgan Stanley, confirmed the departures and declined further comment. Bank of America Merrill Lynch had 14,413 financial advisers at the end of March, with headcount up 1.6% in the first quarter compared with the same period a year ago, spokesman Matthew Card said last week when the bank released its first-quarter earnings. The total number of advisers was down 86 people from the end of last year, though, mainly due to departures within its international segment that now only focuses on ultrahigh-net-worth investors in Latin America and Canada, he said. Morgan Stanley had 15,888 financial advisers at the end of March, little changed from the end of last year and the first quarter of 2015, according to James Wiggins, a spokesman for the wirehouse.