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December 7, 2020

$5-Mln Merrill Team Joins UBS in California

by Mason Braswell
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Advisor Moves, News
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Merrill Lynch, UBS
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Comments (20)
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Financial Advisors Leaving

A $5 million, three-advisor team in northern California left Merrill Lynch for UBS on Friday, the same day that a Merrill duo in Texas producing around $1.6 million joined an independent brokerage practice.

The new UBS brokers, in Walnut Creek, are longtime teammates Darrick Walker, David Leibowitz, Michael Muniz, who had been with Merrill for a decade and had worked together since the 1990s at firms that also included Prudential/Wachovia Securities and Smith Barney/Morgan Stanley.

They had been managing $920 million for Merrill clients, according to a welcoming memo that UBS’s northern California market head, Erin Borger, sent to advisors in the San Francisco Bay area. That’s up from the $350 million of client assets they hoped to bring with them when they joined Merrill in 2010 from Morgan Stanley, a Merrill spokeswoman said at the time.

Walker, Leibowitz and Munoz, who had been in Merrill’s Pleasanton office, could not immediately be reached for comment.

“Darrick, David, and Michael’s team bring with them a wealth of experience to a rapidly growing market for UBS here in Northern California,” Borger said in the memo that was reviewed by AdvisorHub.

Both UBS and Merrill pulled back from active recruiting of veteran brokers more than three years ago, leading to declines in their ranks as thousands of their advisors left for retirement, rival firms and independent practices.

UBS, by far the smallest of the national “wirehouse” brokerage firms with what sources said is about 6,000 U.S. brokers, has recently re-entered the market. Borger has been credited with some early successes in the effort, both before and after the outbreak of Covid-19.

In January, he hired  Jason Schlesinger, a $1.9 million broker from Robert Baird’s Mill Valley office north of San Francisco,  and Joseph Smith, who had been producing $1.6 million broker at a Morgan Stanley branch in San Jose.

Joshua Breeden, a Morgan Stanley producing branch manager in Santa Cruz, joined Borger’s realm in March to run UBS’s Walnut Creek office.

And in a previously unreported move, Nicholas Hunt, who was producing $797,000 on a client book of about $100 million, left Ameriprise Financial in Menlo Park in August, to join a UBS branch in the Silicon Valley city,  according to a person familiar with the move.

The Merrill team that left in Dallas on Friday was led by Patrick Fontana, who had spent more than half of his 20-year brokerage career with the Thundering Herd, according to his BrokerCheck history. He, along with five-year broker Michael Dunham and a client associate, joined Wealth Partners Alliance, an independent advisory firm  affiliated with Raymond James Financial Services.

Wealth Partners Alliance was launched in May 2019 by former Wells Fargo Advisors broker David McBee and former UBS brokers Ricardo “Rick” Lima and John Saalfield. In addition to running their own practices, they offer regulatory services and transition assistance to “breakaway” brokers under the umbrella of Concurrent Advisors, a “super-OSJ” (office of supervisory jurisdiction.

Concurrent’s payout ranges from around 70% to 80% of revenue produced, depending on total production and business mix, McBee said.

The firm is promoting to wirehouse brokers what it says is a “better culture for advisors and clients to do business, which they feel has eroded over time at traditional firms,” it wrote in announcing Fontanta’s arrival.

McBee said in an interview that the message has resonated well during the pandemic, as advisors also focus on the more-than-50% of revenue their firms collect from them as they realize their ability to work relatively independently from their homes.

“The squeeze continues at the big firms,” said McBee.

With Fontana and Dunham, Wealth Partners now includes nine brokers with $655 million of private client assets under management and $400 million in retirement assets. McBee, who said he and his former wirehouse partners promote their 401(k) marketing expertise, aims to grow to around $20 million to $30 million in revenue over the next four years.

Fontana first registered as a rep at Citigroup Smith Barney in 2000, and joined Merrill in 2008, according to BrokerCheck. Dunham started at Fidelity Brokerage Services in 2015 and moved to Merrill in 2018, according to the database.

Merrill Lynch and its parent, Bank of America, do not break out the number of their core wealth management brokers, but sources said Merrill Wealth Management has just over 14,000. It retains its experienced-broker hiring freeze, focusing on developing junior brokers from other parts of the bank and from some regional firms while losing headcount on a net basis due to departures.

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Comments (20)
  • on Dec 7 2020, Without you it’s just bs says:

    Why would you leave Merrill/bac to go to Ubs. Merill is 10xs better.

    Merill is by far the best option for any advisor. Average advisor has 15 percent more assets , merill clients have much better performance by far . Just read the jd powers report. Ubs does not have a real banking platform in the USA.

    Not only is merill the best wire house tons of RIAs that left are begging to come back.

    This team will be sad.

    > Reply to Without you it’s just bs
    • on Dec 7 2020, Maybe because... says:

      Maybe it’s because they’re one of the 65% of Merrill advisors experiencing a record year this year while simultaneously taking a major pay cut due to Seig’s ingenious Growth Grid. You keep punishing and insulting top FA’s and believe it or not they reach a point where they can’t take the insanity and death by a thousand cuts anymore. Going anywhere sounds better than staying!

      > Reply to Maybe because...
    • on Dec 8 2020, Happy as Heck at UBS says:

      Then why are all those great FAs leaving? I left ML for UBS three years ago, and it’s great.

      Merrill has a great platform, but no better than UBS, whatsoever. Client accounts perform better at ML? That’s so subjective, it’s funny.

      Ultimately, people are leaving Bank of America to be treated like adult advisors elsewhere. The bank doesn’t care about them, or their clients.

      I’m glad you’re still happy there, but ask almost anyone who has left the remnants of that firm and you will learn there is life after Merrill…

      > Reply to Happy as Heck at UBS
    • on Dec 17 2020, Spud says:

      JD Power? Well if that’s the case, RBC Wealth Management was ranked #1, with a higher payout backed by top 10 safest bank in the World. Merrill Sucks, they have not been able to recruit because nobody wants to go there. The brokers who are there are mostly legacy advisors who inherited there books. That’s why most of them stay.

      > Reply to Spud
  • on Dec 7 2020, Glad-I'm-Gone says:

    MAYBE it is about the MONEY. It usually is when teams switch from one warehouse to another. UBS in California is better since they goy rid of the total loser from Florida.He is wrecking a PWM branch now.

    > Reply to Glad-I'm-Gone
  • on Dec 7 2020, Limping Cow says:

    The Merrill Dallas Galleria office used to be one of the biggest in the firm 3 or 4 yrs ago before Merrill’s decline started.

    Has anybody heard if they are going to close it or just consolidate the remaining advisors from 3 floors down to 1?

    It can’t make financial sense to have 2 or 3 remaining teams on an entire floor.

    > Reply to Limping Cow
    • on Dec 7 2020, Bank misery says:

      You should see Atlanta, Richmond, etc. Everyone gone. Legacy bank, bank castoffs and people stuck on teams all that is left. Couple that with unqualified and incompetent management and it’s a continued recipe for disaster.

      > Reply to Bank misery
  • on Dec 7 2020, Merrill lol says:

    Merrill loses to everyone! So funny. Keep opening accounts guys so they can eventually get shipped to Edge as Merrill keeps increasing minimum account sizes.

    > Reply to Merrill lol
  • on Dec 7 2020, Andy’s Growth Grid says:

    Hey Andy, How’s YOUR “Growth Grid” going this year? Let’s see – you have a negative 300 net new advisors this year and you’ve lost $54 billion in assets. I assume you’re getting a pay cut like the FA’s you penalize for not growing ???

    > Reply to Andy’s Growth Grid
    • on Dec 7 2020, And Andy, please explain... says:

      And Andy, please explain: 73% of FA’s are having a better year than last year, 65% are having record years – and yet your profits are down 30% ???

      > Reply to And Andy, please explain...
  • on Dec 7 2020, The Bull is Back says:

    Only 5 percent of advisors got pay cuts ?30 percent broke even. 20 percent got a 1 percent grid increase. 50 percent got a 2 prevent raise. And the rest got a 3 percent grid increase.

    This is evidence that the growth grid worked. In total Merrill paid over 275 million in extra pay to advisors. This is an amazingly successful program.

    Merrill is the best place to work at in the industry. If it was not great why are there hundreds of people that left calling everyday begging to come back . Thousands of RIAs shuttered their doors this year . The rest needed government handouts in the form of ppp to stay open.

    Maybe if you come hat in hand and ask nicely your old manager will let you back in the door.

    > Reply to The Bull is Back
    • on Dec 7 2020, Bank misery says:

      Like the total of ZERO that have done that year to date. Look at the recruiting tables—Merrill gets nobody. Nobody has called Merrill to come there in years. If so, reference just one. Article, name of advisor, etc. nobody wants to leave their own entrepreneurial and independent business to work at a financial services Wal-mart and be treated like crap. That’s why everyone is leaving—the actual numbers are huge and they don’t lie.

      > Reply to Bank misery
    • on Dec 7 2020, Glad to be Gone says:

      Number of RIAs
      2019 12,993
      2018 12,578
      2017 12,172
      2016 11,847
      2015 11,473
      2014 10,895
      2013 10,533
      2012 10,511

      Thousands closed?

      > Reply to Glad to be Gone
  • on Dec 7 2020, Carolina On My Mind says:

    Ha ha at the trolls on this page. Trolls can be funny but there is not one person who thinks Merrill is a great place anymore. Even the advisors that refuse to leave think it sucks! ha ha ha.

    > Reply to Carolina On My Mind
  • on Dec 7 2020, Arnie says:

    RECRUITING LOSERSAUM ($ MLN)
    1. Merrill Lynch$53,164
    2. UBS$28,643
    3. Wells Fargo$24,902
    4. Morgan Stanley$22,321
    5. JPMorgan Chase & Co.$11,618

    > Reply to Arnie
    • on Dec 7 2020, And don’t forget this impressive number... says:

      RECRUITING WINNERS AUM:

      63 (tied): Merrill Lynch $0.00

      > Reply to And don’t forget this impressive number...
      • on Dec 8 2020, Chagrined says:

        These guys went to UBS because they have been everywhere else. Some even twice. They are renters. You can’t judge ML by these guys move it’s all about the $$$

        > Reply to Chagrined
  • on Dec 7 2020, Ben Around says:

    Gotta love the jr manager comments book licking mother BAC. Such BS. I still need to calm down The MER guys who joined our office. They nearly have a coronary every time they recall all the lost restricted stock and options on MER. Millions lost and decades plus of work blown up by poor management.

    > Reply to Ben Around
  • on Dec 8 2020, stain o'neil says:

    Your old manager will not take you back because he or she is gone also. No successful advisor would come on here and defend Merrill. Every complex is filled with unqualified, inexperienced middle managers walking around with their chest out trying to prove their worth. They are constantly rattling cages and spewing complete bs because their boss told them to do it. Their only goal is to manipulate every advisor/team against each other. Soon there will only be book inheritors and legacy bank advisors at Merrill and they will have the lowest most restrictive hurdle filled grid in the industry. Coments on here reinforce BofA has a culture of dishonesty.

    > Reply to stain o'neil
  • on Dec 9 2020, Ron Edde says:

    It is curious that Merrill has any experienced, productive advisors left at all who have not already hit the exits. The old saying about how strong inertia is in the status quo can be observed in those still staying put.

    > Reply to Ron Edde

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