Bob McCann lures four Merrill Lynch vets to UBS

Just a few weeks after officially joining UBS AG as the head of its U.S. wealth management business, Bob McCann has snared four veterans from his former firm, Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., to help improve UBS' financial advisory business. Mr. McCann has hired Bob Mulholland — who was second in command at the Merrill brokerage business behind Mr. McCann before leaving in 2004 to join Sound Securities LLC — and Brian Hull, who most recently was the head of the private bank and investment group at Merrill. Also joining the UBS wealth management business are Paula Polito and John Brown, both former employees of Merrill Lynch under Mr. McCann. Mr. Brown specifically worked in Merrill's trading, prime brokerage, clearing and operations group, while Ms. Polito was formerly the head of marketing in Merrill's wealth management business. The moves were reported by Dow Jones and Bloomberg, which cited an internal memo that announced the changes. In the memo, Mr. McCann described these new hires as being part of his “renewal team.” It said they would be in charge of improving the firm's wealth management business in the United States after back-to-back quarters of declines in client assets and financial advisers. UBS had client outflows of $9.6 billion in its Americas wealth management business during the three-month period ended Sept. 30, the company disclosed during its earnings call last week. That compares with $5.3 billion of outflows during the second quarter. At the same time, the UBS unit ended the quarter with 7,286 financial advisers, an 8% decrease from the second quarter. The firm shed nearly 370 advisers during the quarter in thanks largely to Stifel Financial Corp.'s acquisition of 55 UBS branches in March.