Merrill Loses $3-Mln Team to Rockefeller in CA, $2-Mln Group to Texas RIA

Merrill Lynch on Friday lost a team with around $1 billion in assets to Rockefeller Capital Management in Irvine, California and another team overseeing $400 million in client assets who joined a registered investment advisory firm in Dallas. 

In the larger of the moves, Alpesh R. Patel led his five-person team, including advisors Matthew Birkett and Darren Siegrist, to open a Rockefeller office in nearby Newport Beach, according to an announcement. The group, which includes “team chief operating officer” Hai Dang and client associate Chris Iwamasa, had generated a combined $3 million in revenue, according to a source familiar with their practice. 

Patel, who spent the last 11 years of his 22-year career with Merrill could not be reached for comment. He started his career at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter in 1998, moved to Wells Fargo in 2002 and joined Merrill Lynch in 2009, according to BrokerCheck. 

The team is the 46th to join Rockefeller since the family office was recapitalized with venture capital funds in 2018 and it’s at least the fourth multi-million dollar team to join from Merrill this year. 

Rockefeller last week hired a four-person Merrill team generating $2.5 million in revenue in Denver. It also landed a $2.2 million team in Chicago and a $3.3 million Florida team in January. It also last week nabbed a high-profile manager, Brett Thelander, who had overseen a Merrill private wealth region in Chicago and is expected to join in May. 

Merrill halted veteran recruiting in 2017 as it shifted focus toward driving internal growth among its existing advisor force, and a senior executive said in January that 80% of departures at the firm were from brokers who had joined Merrill from another firm implying they were frequent movers. 

Birkett started at Wells in 2005 and also joined Merrill in 2009, according to BrokerCheck. Siegrist started at Merrill in 2017, according to BrokerCheck. 

Merrill, unlike wirehouse rivals UBS Wealth Management USA and Morgan Stanley, remains a member of the Protocol for Broker Recruiting, which allows brokers to take client contact information when moving among signatory firms. Rockefeller joined the agreement in October last year, according to a site tracking registrations. 

Separately, a multi-million dollar Merrill broker in Dallas left the wirehouse world for independence to join Vaquero Private Wealth, an RIA based in the same city.

Ryan Maynard, a 19-year Merrill veteran, had managed about $400 million in assets and generated around $2 million in annual revenue prior to the move, he said in an interview from his new office. He moved along with a client associate, Taylor McClain.

Maynard’s father, Wayne, who is 71 and had been with Merrill since 1994, entered the firm’s Client Transition sunset program five years ago and fully retired from the industry this week, Ryan said. 

Neither Ryan’s move nor his father’s retirement were reflected on their BrokerCheck records, which still listed them as registered with Merrill as of Friday afternoon. A Merrill spokeswoman did not return a request for comment on either of the team’s departures. 

Vaquero was founded in 2017 by Ben Gordon, a former broker at Merrill Lynch’s Private Banking and Investing Group (now known as Merrill Lynch Private Wealth Management) for ultra-wealthy clients. 

Maynard said a common friend who knew of his interest in breaking away had introduced him to Gordon. He said he was frustrated with the “Bank of America culture” at Merrill but declined to elaborate on specifics. He’ll also be giving up his brokerage license as part of the move. 

“I wanted to feel like I’m in a place where I can make a decision unencumbered by any conflicts of interest about what the best thing to do for my client is,” Maynard said. 

Maynard chose Fidelity Investments as his primary custodian although he said he will likely custody at least some assets with BNY Mellon’s Pershing as well.