UBS did an about face last week by snapping up long time Morgan Stanley manager, Ben Firestein to head up it’s recruiting efforts.
The firm also affirmed it’s commitment to attracting and retaining the industry’s top advisor talent.
Yet back in 2017, Tom Nataril , President of UBS Americas,
with much fanfare, announced the firm’s exit from the recruiting wars.
He said, “We are putting a stake in the ground that relentless and costly advisor recruiting is not sustainable as a growth strategy in our industry.”
Not long after that ,the firm followed Morgan Stanley’s lead and withdrew from the Broker Recruiting Protocol.
The following year , UBS inserted non-compete clauses into new hire recruiting contacts and into qualifying documents for strategic growth awards.
So what changed?
There have been some huge defections from UBS this year.
Year to date 49 teams, representing more than 38 Billion in AUM have jumped ship to rival firms.
High end advisors who control their client relationships can leave non-protocol firms at will. They take their business with them- so the lock down strategy has failed.
UBS is subject to the same competitive pressures as other firms.
Aging advisor salesforces need to be replaced with younger talent.
In addition to moves to major firms, some of the industy’s best producers have joined multi-custodial RIA’s or started their own RIA’s -as the range of options for successful advisors continues to expand.
You can read the AdvisorHub artcle here.
