One of the top teams in the industry, led by the largest female advisor at UBS, Leslie Lauer, moves to RBC Wealth Management.

RBC Wealth Management’s supportive leadership and culture will allow us the freedom to focus on what we do best—helping our clients transition their businesses

Leslie Lauer
Managing Director, Private Wealth Advisor
The ESOP Group

The ESOP Group built an incredible business at UBS. Founded in 1989 in Atlanta, GA, with a focus on crafting employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) for executives of privately held companies, it grew to managing over $5.5B in client assets and over $20mm in annual production.

Over the years, the team became leaders in providing consulting services to these business owners, and UBS proved to be the ideal home for this specialized unit—with the benefit of investment banking, lending, asset management, product manufacturing, and wealth management all under one roof.

Team lead and Managing Director Leslie Lauer joined the UBS group in 2003 and rose to become the largest female advisor at the firm and consistently landed on top advisor lists for the likes of Barron’s and Forbes.

However, as we have seen with other types of specialized businesses (i.e., Merrill and Wells Fargo pulling back from international clients, and years ago Morgan Stanley backing away from the public funds space), sometimes the risk appetite and strategic priorities of a firm change—ultimately forcing a strong team’s hand.

As such, Leslie, along with fellow UBS Managing Directors Rebecca Glasgow and Curt Rubinas, realized that if they wanted to preserve the incredible business they developed and have a pathway for growth, they would have to find a new firm to support them.

To this multi-generational business, the motivation around a move was to protect its legacy and ongoing growth for decades to come.

Diamond Consultants became their partner in providing objective counsel on the vast array of options available. And being a specialized business with unique needs allowed us to rule out many different firms without the team investing their valuable time exploring.

It became clear through our process that while the independent space held some appeal, they needed a strong balance sheet and the resources of a major financial institution.

Ultimately, RBC won because the firm was excited about expanding its ESOP business and could deliver the entirety of its resources to the team—but with far less red tape and bureaucracy, plus a direct line to the top of the house.

RBC pushed their chips to the middle of the table and went all-in on investing in and supporting this incredible team and their business.

Leslie, Rebecca, and Curt also benefited from Diamond Consultants’ decades of deal-making experience to negotiate a bespoke and customized transition package.

“This talented and forward-thinking team is further proof that RBC Wealth Management continues to be the firm of best fit for the industry’s top advisors,” Tom Sagissor, president of RBC Wealth Management – U.S., said in a statement.

The 10-person team includes senior financial associates Kurt Hirshman and Catherine Mericka, senior client associates Andrew Becket and Christy Dryden, senior investment associates Dana Breland and Christy Dryden, and client associate Rebecca Leichter.

Diamond Consultants is pleased to have represented Leslie, Rebecca, Curt, and their team and looks forward to hearing more about their success in the future.

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More About this Move….

• UBS Loses $5.5 Billion Advisor Team to RBC
• RBC Notches Its Largest Hire With $22 Million UBS Team in Atlanta
• RBC snags giant $5.5 billion team from UBS in Atlanta

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