The Merrill Lynch Herd continues to head for greener pastures as two large teams depart to UBS.
The story line has become a constant refrain as we continue to watch top wealth management teams leave Merrill Lynch in droves, literally three significant teams since September 23rd have announced their departure from the firm. Does Andy Sieg really care? Probably not as the departures represent the ethos Sieg’s management team created within wealth management at Merrill Lynch (oh I meant Merrill), abandoning what made them great in years of old. This time it is the departures of Washington DC based Slater, King & Fitzenreiter, and the New York City based Murray, Peeler & Dipaola Group, both finding a new home at UBS.
Roger Gershman, familiar with the team/s and the UBS deals remarked, “the groups got yet another phenomenal deal with yet a different firm, UBS this time, a clear mandate that the Merrill Lynch wealth management model is no longer serving its best teams with the client service expectation teams desire to deliver to clients.” He added, “UBS is offering the only deal on Wall Street where it is 100% guaranteed with frontends and backends since there are ZERO hurdles. Hurdles of course are a mandated ‘fill or kill’ and won’t get paid so, in this market, can greatly impact advisors who transition in today’s volatile market.”
The $15 Million/$2.8 Billion Slater, King, Fitzenreiter & Murphy Group is led by Managing Director, William Slater, a multi-year recipient of the Barron’s List of America’s Top 1,200 Advisors by State.
The $7 Million Murray, Peeler & Dipaola Group six-person team is led by Senior Vice Presidents, Peter Murray (24 years at ML) and David Peeler (11 years at ML), and Senior Retirement Plan Consultant, Andrew Dipaola (13 years at ML). Other members of the team are: Joe DeLasho (4 years at ML), Senior Wealth Strategy Associate, Jane Ward, Client Service Specialist, and Drew Hanff, Client Service Specialist.
The Gershman Group specializes in Merrill Lynch team transitions since
the family business used to be the biggest recruiter in the country for ML PBIG and has many relationships with some of the biggest teams in the country. Gershman quotes, “we create a bidding war amongst all the banks against each other and let the biggest buyer (and best fit) win.”
