September 7, 2021
UBS Wealth Administration has picked off a Merrill Lynch workforce in Portland, Maine, who had managed $400 million in buyer belongings, in accordance with an announcement on Tuesday.
Micah Roberge and Shaun Hawkins left Merrill on Friday after 13 and 10 years, respectively, with the wirehouse, in accordance with their BrokerCheck data. They moved together with a consumer affiliate, Deborah Erickson, and had generated $1.9 million in annual income, in accordance with an individual conversant in their follow.
Reached at their new UBS department, Roberge stated they opted for UBS as a result of it resembled the wealth management-focused tradition of the Merrill Lynch he had joined in 2007 previous to its buy by Financial institution of America.
“At UBS, wealth administration is the first enterprise,” Roberge stated in an interview. “On the mixed corporations of Financial institution of America and Merrill Lynch, Financial institution of America is the larger enterprise.” A spokesperson for Merrill didn’t instantly return a request for remark. The agency has seen an exodus of bigger producers that has accelerated in current months. A Merrill workforce producing $5 million in annual income additionally left on Friday to hitch Rockefeller Capital Administration in Ohio.
A Washington State-based workforce that produced $8.2 million in income on $1.6 billion in belongings moved earlier final week on September 1 to Morgan Stanley Wealth Administration.
Departing brokers have pointed to quite a few triggers, usually citing insurance policies resembling Merrill’s transfer in 2019 to withhold the primary 3% of brokers’ manufacturing from hitting the payout grid or what they are saying seem like bank-imposed compliance restrictions.
Merrill two weeks in the past launched its personal marketing campaign, Challenge Thunder, that features weekly bulletins of coverage and procedural adjustments aimed toward easing some dealer qualms. It final week, for instance, stated it could make it simpler in some circumstances for brokers to do enterprise with clients who earned cash from marijuana firms.
The supply with information of Roberge and Hawkins’ follow stated the 2 received inner acknowledgement from native administration for his or her asset gathering and have been amongst roughly 1,000 of Merrill’s brokers who certified for a 2% bonus hurdle based mostly on elevating buyer belongings and liabilities and including web new households for the three years since Merrill’s ‘progress grid’ program started.
The 2 additionally thought of another aggressively recruiting corporations, together with wirehouse rival Morgan Stanley Wealth Administration, which like UBS has revived its hiring efforts over the previous two years after a brief hiatus. However they opted for UBS as a result of it had a “sturdy” presence within the Portland market and a few content material agency veterans offered the duo on UBS’s tradition.
“We proceed to concentrate on recruiting and retaining essentially the most client-focused and productive Monetary Advisors within the business,” Jad Dieterle, Northern New England complicated supervisor for UBS, stated in an announcement.
Roberge first registered as a dealer in 2004 at Citigroup’s Smith Barney and moved to Merrill in 2006, in accordance with his BrokerCheck report.
Hawkins began at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in 1994 and in addition labored for stints at Morgan Stanley & Co., Susquehanna Monetary Group and Dimension Brokerage earlier than becoming a member of Merrill in 2011, in accordance with his BrokerCheck.
Within the different path, Los Angeles-based B. Riley Monetary lured a million-dollar UBS producer in New York Metropolis to its small retail brokerage unit.
Chris Michelsen, who produced $1.1 million in income and oversaw round $140 million in buyer belongings, joined B. Riley Wealth Administration on Friday, in accordance with Craig Pirtle, B. Riley’s chief technique officer.
Michelsen began at UBS in 1999 as an institutional dealer and have become a dealer on the firm in 2012, in accordance with an announcement from B. Riley. The connection to B. Riley started a couple of 12 months in the past with a chilly name from certainly one of its inner recruiting managers, Gregory Troccoli, who had been reaching out to UBS brokers in New York, Pirtle stated.
Michelsen was satisfied in the end by the nearer consideration from senior executives as certainly one of simply 175 brokers at B. Riley’s wealth enterprise and the place he could be greater than double the typical manufacturing, in accordance with Pirtle.
UBS had 6,274 brokers, together with a number of hundred in Latin America and Canada on the finish of June, down a web 31 over the second quarter, in accordance with its Swiss dad or mum’s most up-to-date earnings report.