Merrill Lynch grabs UBS team of $2.5M producers

A four-man team of financial advisers from UBS Financial Services Inc. managing $277 million in assets with trailing-12-month production of $2.5 million has joined the Palm Beach complex of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. John Burns, William Liebowitz, Peter Krones and John Forgatch will report to Merrill Lynch managing director James Chahine. Mr. Liebowitz and Mr. Krones both worked at Citigroup Global Markets Inc. before moving to UBS in 2007. Mr. Burns joined UBS at the end of 2005 after working for a year at C.E. Unterberg Towbin & Co. — a firm since acquired by U.K.-based investment bank Collins Stewart Hawkpoint PLC. Mr. Forgatch worked at Morgan Stanley and then Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC since 2007, before joining UBS for the second time in 2010. The move registers as one of the largest moves of the last 60 days, according to the InvestmentNews Advisers on the Move database. Financial adviser moves from wirehouses have been few and far between this year, said executive recruiter Mindy Diamond. The biggest reason, she said, is that a large percentage of wirehouse advisers remain under retention packages signed two to three years ago. While the summer months are often slow, “it's a little quieter than normal,” said Ms. Diamond, who added that as the packages sunset, advisers will be more interested in exploring options. “We have a robust pipeline of deals where advisers look likely to move,” Ms. Diamond said. “I suspect that things will pick up after the summer.”