Rockefeller pulls UBS team; Ares invests in Steward: Advisor Moves

Rockefeller Capital Management is deepening its roots on both coasts with a three-person advisory team pulled from UBS' U.S. wealth management division.

The Tidal Wealth Partners is made up of advisors Michael Eustace, Brenda O'Connor and Anthony Solfaro. The three had previously managed $938 million in client assets at UBS, according to Forbes. 

The Tidal Wealth Partners' website lists the firm as being part of Rockefeller's "global family office" division and says it has expertise in working with business owners and entrepreneurs. Eustace began his career in 1996 and moved to UBS in 2004 for the first time before returning in 2015 after several years at Credit Suisse Securities.

O'Connor started at Smith Barney in 2007 and later joined UBS in 2020. Solfaro had been at UBS since 2015.

UBS has struggled with advisor defections since it announced various modifications to advisor compensation policies in late 2024. Although UBS said this year that it will roll back some of the changes in 2026, advisors continue to leave in a steady stream. 

UBS ended its third quarter with 5,779 advisors in its Americas unit, which includes Canada and Latin America. That was up slightly from the previous quarter, but down 3.5% from the third quarter of 2024.

Rockefeller has been one of many firms benefiting from the exodus. In July, for instance, it recruited an 8-person team called Entrepreneur Group, which had been managing roughly $2 billion at UBS in New York. 

Rockefeller announced in October that it was receiving capital investments giving it a total value of $6.6 billion. The investors include Mousse Partners, an investment firm owned by the family behind the luxury brand Chanel; Progeny 3, a single-family office in Kirkland, Washington; and Abrams Capital, a hedge fund in Boston. The private equity firm Viking Global Investors and the Rockefeller and the wealthy Desmarais family have also contributed capital.

The large RIA Steward Partners is fluffing its capital cushion with $475 million from a subsidiary of the asset management giant Ares.

Ares Credit, a unit of Ares Management Corp. specializing in lending, is joining the investment firm Cynosure Group and large family office The Pritzker Organization, with ties to the Hyatt hotel chain, as backers of Steward Partners. Ares' capital infusion marks "a significant expansion of its lending relationship" with Steward and gives it a non-controlling minority investment in the firm, according to a statement from Steward. Steward Partners continues to be largely owned by its employees.

Steward Partners was founded in 2013 by a group of executives who had left large wirehouses to start their own firm. In part through a series of acquisition deals, Steward has gone from having around $100 million in assets to $50 billion today.

CEO Jim Gold, who helped found Steward after a long career at Morgan Stanley and Smith Barney, said the Ares' investment was another "defining milestone for Steward Partners."

"This transaction is a strong affirmation of everything our partners have built over more than a decade," Gold said in a statement. "Our team has created meaningful value through years of deep commitment to our mission, and we are thrilled to see the commitment of our partners rewarded."