UBS scoops up $950M Morgan Stanley team

Fresh off the announcement that the Swiss wirehouse had picked up four advisers with $870 million in assets under management from Merrill Lynch, UBS Wealth Management Americas nabbed a team from Morgan Stanley with $950 million. The four brokers, who operate as the Empire Group, include David Sobocinski, Julian Frank, Marc Wong and Mark Remigio. They previously generated some $5.6 million in annual revenue at Morgan Stanley and joined UBS today in the firm's Melville, N.Y., office, according to UBS spokesman Gregg Rosenberg. A Morgan Stanley spokeswoman, Christine Jockle, confirmed the team's departure, but declined further comment. The sizeable hire is the latest in a string of recruits that UBS has announced so far in the third quarter, including a $2 billion Morgan Stanley team earlier this month. “They have their foot on the gas pedal in terms of pressure to get their managers to recruit,” said Rick Peterson, a recruiter with an eponymous firm in Spring, Texas. “That [pressure] gets stronger and stronger.” Still, Mr. Peterson said the latest round of big hires was mostly coincidental and that UBS had not increased its incentives, despite the increasingly competitive market. “It's timing,” Mr. Peterson said. “We have not heard from any UBS managers that they're going to increase the deal or that they did increase a deal for someone we were talking to.” Mr. Rosenberg also said that the string of hires was just coincidental. “There really has been no change or ramping up of recruiting efforts at all,” said Mr. Rosenberg. Mr. Sobocinski began his career at David Lerner Associates Inc. in 1979 and also worked at Lehman Brothers Inc. before joining Citigroup Global Markets Inc. in 1993 and then Morgan Stanley in 2009 through its acquisition of the Smith Barney brokerage unit, according to registration records. Mr. Frank started at Lehman Brothers in 1983 and also joined Citigroup in 1993, registration records show. Mr. Wong began at IDS Life Insurance Co. and worked at two other broker-dealers before joining Citigroup in 2001. Mr. Remigio started at Merrill Lynch in 2000 and joined Citigroup in 2005. UBS reported declining headcount in the second quarter of this year with 6,948 advisers, down from 7,119 at the same time last year.