- The recruitment process for financial advisors leaving one firm to join another went fully digital this year, but there were still lots of big-ticket moves across the industry.
- UBS hired a team overseeing $9 billion from JPMorgan’s private bank, JPMorgan poached teams for its reorganized wealth business, and Wells Fargo in June had its best recruiting month in a decade, by revenue.
- Technology introduced snappier recruitment processes for some firms at a moment when many are doubling down on their wealth management segments and the space is rife with consolidation.
- Business Insider has rounded up some of the key leaders and executives involved with those processes across Wall Street, overseeing financial advisors’ recruitment at a critical moment for the industry.
- Some recruiters we spoke with said they expect advisors’ movement between firms to continue into 2021 as they have spent time this year reassessing how their firms have supported them during the pandemic.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
If 2020 was the year firms either doubled down on wealth management, introduced efforts to push further into the space, or made acquisitions that cemented their grip on the industry, then financial advisors and their books of business are some of the hottest commodities on Wall Street.
As the process of recruiting advisors leaving one firm to join another went digital this year, there were still lots of big-ticket moves around the US. Analysts say technology has allowed for speedy recruitment processes at a moment when competition for advisor talent has reached a fever pitch.
“While in-person meetings hopefully are not too far into the horizon, we continue to think that many lessons learned from the pandemic will have more lasting change on behavior moving forward, including around advisor recruiting,” Devin Ryan, an analyst with JMP Securities, wrote to clients in a September report.
Some of the largest bank-owned wealth managers like Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, UBS Global Wealth Management, and Wells Fargo Advisors made significant advisor hires.
UBS on Tuesday said it hired an Atlanta-based private wealth team from JPMorgan Private Bank overseeing a significant $9 billion in assets under management, its second-largest advisor team hire of 2020. The largest was a Charlotte-based team formerly with Merrill Lynch that it hired in January, overseeing $10 billion in assets at the time.
JPMorgan, for its part, has been on an advisor hiring spree as it builds out its recently reorganized wealth management business, poaching from the likes of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management and UBS. The firm’s private bank has remained a separate unit.
The firm is considering hiring as many as 4,000 financial advisors in the next five to six years.
In an October interview with Business Insider, JPMorgan Wealth Management Chief Executive Kristin Lemkau described the industry competition as “hand-to-hand combat” when it comes to “hiring teams and losing teams.”
“It’s highly, highly competitive,” she said.
Meanwhile, Wells Fargo Advisors, which has lost a steady stream of financial advisors in recent years following the bank’s sweeping fake-account scandal, in June reported its best recruiting month by revenue in a decade.
Some recruiters Business Insider spoke with said they expect a similar pace of hiring and movement between firms next year, especially as other firms, like Citi and Goldman Sachs, have plans to add to their financial advisor ranks.
Jeff Feldman, a wealth management-focused recruiter and consultant, said wealth advisors “being stuck at home and in the work-from-home environment has caused them to reevaluate their relationships with their firms” this year, he said.
Advisors are asking whether their firms “align with what they are trying to accomplish with their teams and clients,” said Feldman, who founded Chicago-based Financial Recruitment Partners and counts LPL Financial, RBC Wealth Management, and Rockefeller Capital Management among his clients.
Business Insider has rounded up some of the key leaders and executives involved with those processes across Wall Street, responsible for overseeing financial advisors’ recruitment at a critical moment for the industry.
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