April 21, 2021
Louis Diamond Quoted
By Jeff Martin
UBS Wealth Management USA has hired a six-person team that had been managing $5 billion in client assets at J.P. Morgan Private Bank, as well as an Ohio team from the same firm, according to separate announcements on Wednesday. Those lengthen a list of recent private bank recruits joining the wirehouse.
Louis Diamond, a New York-based recruiter, said that wirehouses and other traditional brokerage firms historically shied away from recruiting private bankers since the portion of assets that typically transfer are “extremely low and unpredictable” with hurdles like garden leaves, non-solicitation agreements and clients’ deep ties to the parent bank.
But private bank groups have become more of a focus for the wirehouses as they look for fresh sources of talent outside their own pool and because bankers usually have attractive client books, according to Diamond. Coming from a salary-and-bonus banking world, they can also be somewhat less expensive hires than a “mega” wirehouse team, he said.
