Merrill advisers find new homes

Salomon Smith Barney (SSB) and UBS Warburg have picked up a number of the Merrill Lynch private client brokers who found themselves facing redundancy when the operation was scaled back late last year.

Seventy private client advisers were made redundant last December when Merrill Lynch decided to refocus its retail private client division on high net worth individuals, following a 52 per cent drop in group earnings for the September quarter last year.

Former private clients head George Kane has since returned to the UK, leaving a team of 15 to 20 advisers looking after clients with more than $2 million to invest.

UBS Warburg picked up 28 of the ex-Merrill Lynch advisers, which has led to a significant increase in clients and assets under management and accelerated the group’s business plan, according to UBS Warburg Private Clients chief executive Jeff Dudas.

“We didn’t wake up in the morning and think let’s go hire new brokers. We saw it as an opportunity to bring in experienced brokers with the same focus who serviced the same type of clients,” Dudas says.

Salomon Smith Barney picked up 18 former Merrill Lynch private client brokers, who are now spread across three offices with the bulk of them, 13, based in Sydney.

SSB Private Clients marketing head Adam Trumble says the group has pursued an active recruiting drive in the past few years, acquiring ANZ stockbrokers in 1999 and HSBC advisers a year later.

“This latest group represents another part of SSB’s expansion, and takes the number of private client advisers to nearly 200,” Trumble says.

“SSB was geared up to take on a number of new advisers, we’ve had an ongoing focus on quality advisers and the Merrill Lynch situation represented an opportunity for this.”

Financial services and stockbroking company Hartley Poynton (part of HP JDV), who were said to be pursuing the 70 strong Merrill Lynch team picked up five of the advisers.