$11-Mln UBS Team Joins First Republic, $2.5-Mln Morgan Stanley Pair Go to Wells

A four-advisor UBS team in Los Angeles producing about $11 million left Friday for First Republic, while a Morgan Stanley team in Florida said to be generating around $2.5 million on the same day joined Wells Fargo Advisors.

The wirehouse exodus was highlighted by the move of UBS senior vice presidents Sanah Chung, John B. Barnes and the father-son team of Joseph Lally and Joe, Jr. The four advisors—whose UBS legacy in the case of the senior Lally dates back 30 years—generated their significant revenue on some $1.9 billion of “ultra-high-net-worth” client assets, said a person familiar with their books.

Together with three client service associates, the brokers shifted from UBS’s South Flower Street branch in L.A. to First Republic’s nearby Century City office, First Republic announced. Each of the brokers joined the private bank’s fast-growing “investment management” businesses as managing directors, the bank said. A year ago, $6-million producer Steven H. Levine also left UBS in Los Angeles for First Republic.

Morgan Stanley bid adieu in Plantation, Fla., to Gary R. Burwick—a 21-year industry veteran who joined the wirehouse almost nine years ago—and his junior partner, Marc Engelman, who has been a registered rep for three years, all with Morgan Stanley. They moved to a Wells office in Fort Lauderdale, according to their BrokerCheck records. One member of their team, 33-year wirehouse veteran Jayne Mills, remains with Morgan Stanley, according to her BrokerCheck record.

Spokespeople at UBS did not respond to requests for comment on the moves, or the reported revenue of the Los Angeles team. A Morgan Stanley spokeswoman said she could not immediately comment on the Florida departures.

The First Republic hires continue an aggressive round of hiring by the private bank, largely sourced at wirehouses that have retrenched from recruiting. The San Francisco-based bank has been active on the West Coast, but also has been hiring in New York and Boston, and  last month opened its first office in New Jersey anchored by a UBS team that was producing about $3.6 million, according to sources.

Chung and Barnes have been partners under the rubric “Los Angeles Wealth Management Group” since 2000, according to their biographies at their former firm. They joined UBS in 2009 after eight years with Smith Barney, and began their careers at Merrill Lynch in 1989 and 1994, respectively. They focus on ultra high-net-worth families, entrepreneurs and high-profile executives, the biographies said.

Joseph Lally and his son manage an “all-cap-equity” portfolio for very wealthy individuals, according to their UBS biographies. The father began his career in 1963 with Hornblower & Weeks, and also worked at regional firms Bateman Eichler, Hill Richards and Hambrecht & Quist before joining UBS predecessor firm PaineWebber in February 1989. His son spent all but two-and-a-half months of his 22-year brokerage career with UBS, according to his BrokerCheck record.

First Republic has a little more than 200 “wealth managers” and “wealth advisors” in the traditional brokerage unit it calls investment management, but has been attracting large producers with signing bonuses that can reach 300% of their trailing-12-month revenue if asset-transfer targets are met over nine years, according to recruiters.

The arrival of the Chung-Barnes-Lally quartet helps First Republic salve the loss of its flagship brokerage team formerly known as Luminous Capital, which the bank said departed in June to form two independent advisory firms cumulatively managing some $14 billion.

Friday’s moves from UBS and Morgan Stanley parallel the departure the same day of a Merrill Lynch group in Virginia that was generating about $4 million of annual revenue. The team, led by Kenneth Crowley, joined Rockefeller Capital Management in Washington, D.C.

UBS AG in its second-quarter earnings report said that headcount at its Americas wealth unit of fewer than 7,000 brokers fell by a net 248 brokers, or 3.5%, over the past year ending on June 30. Morgan Stanley’s broker force fell by 75 over the April-June quarter to 15,633 advisors.

Merrill Lynch Wealth Management had 14,690 brokers as of June 30, down by 130 from a year earlier, and in recent weeks lost teams in California and Colorado to Morgan Stanley and RBC Wealth Management, respectively. Merrill Wealth President Andy Sieg said this summer that the firm’s hiring freeze remains in effect.