The biggest wirehouse and regional moves of 2025

December 29, 2025 3:27 PM

There are wirehouse moves that would be big in any year, and then there are moves that are likely to set records for a long time to come.

The latter was the case for a mammoth 90-advisor group with nearly $130 billion under management that cast all other departing teams under its shadow by leaving Merrill to start its own RIA affiliated with Dynasty Financial Partners. But the departure of OpenArc Corporate Advisory in Atlanta, and the resulting lawsuit, was an outlier in a year peppered with recruiting deals that would have topped annual lists in any other time.

Some of the biggest moves fell in line with some notable trends. UBS, which itself predicted it would lose advisors following changes to its compensation policies, not only saw a large number of individual advisors depart this year but also some big teams. Meanwhile, firms like Wells Fargo and RBC continued to prove their appeal to advisor teams.

Before embarking on our list of top moves to and from wirehouses and other Wall Street mainstays, a few qualifications are in order. Firms are usually not shy about trumpeting their most-notable recruiting deals, but there's always a chance we didn't learn of a big move simply because the participants didn't announce it.

We also decided to not include private-banking teams, even though they tend to boast very large AUM tallies. The reason: Private bankers often have a harder time than regular advisors moving assets over to their new firms.

On the topic of assets, in most years a team with $1 billion or more under management would probably have made the list of top departures. But with their asset tallies perhaps buoyed by bull runs in the stock market, advisors needed to have at least $2 billion in client assets to make this year's cut.

With those caveats noted, read on for the 10 biggest moves of the year:

The OpenArc Corporate Advisory team gathers in its offices shortly after leaving Merrill.

$129B team leaves Merrill to start RIA OpenArc

A lawsuit was inevitable after the principals of Merrill's Global Corporate & Institutional Advisory Services departed in September to form their own advisory firm.

No firm would stand idly by as a team with $129 billion under management walked out the door to set up an RIA, in this case, with support from Dynasty Financial Partners and Charles Schwab. Merrill was quick to allege that the group had conducted a "pre-meditated corporate raid" of its offices in the Atlanta suburb of Peachtree City. It also accused Dynasty and Charles Schwab of conspiring to help the team move; Dynasty, for instance, is said to have provided $90 million in financing to the OpenArc group.

Merrill's request for a temporary restraining order barring the OpenArc advisors from soliciting their former clients was ultimately denied by a federal judge. But with so many assets at stake, much of them held in equity-compensation and retirement plans, Merrill will no doubt continue the fight before a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority arbitration panel.

Hingham Street Partners team picture_120225.jpg

Hingham Street Partners, a 16-advisor team with $6.3 billion under management, left UBS to join Wells Fargo.

Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo’s $6.3B team win from UBS

An advisory group with more than $6 billion under management would probably have topped this list in any other year.

Even overshadowed as it may have been by the OpenArc team, Hingham Street Partners' departure from UBS to join Wells Fargo was one of the most notable advisor moves of the year. The 16-person team had formerly managed $6.3 billion and produced $39 million in annual revenue in Boston and other parts of New England.

UBS began to see its advisor departures accelerate in late 2024 after it made modifications to its compensation policies. It rolled back some of those changes this year, but the defections have continued.

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

$6B UBS team leaves to go RIA

UBS lost another big team toward the end of the year with the departure of an advisor duo who left to start a registered investment advisory called 71 West Capital Partners.

At UBS, Denis Cleary and Greg Devine led a private wealth practice managing $6 billion for clients in 35 states. They had first worked together at Goldman Sachs starting in 2006 and then moved to UBS in 2020.

Cleary will be the CEO of the new firm and work out of Boston, while Devine will oversee the firm's Los Angeles office. 71 West Capital Partners will primarily manage wealth for entrepreneurs, business owners, executives, families and philanthropic groups.

RBC pulls $5B ex-First Republic team from JPMorgan

This spring saw JPMorgan saying goodbye to the Degenaars Babb Group, a team with $5 billion under management that it had originally brought on with its purchase of the former regional bank First Republic out of government receivership in 2023. RBC's U.S. wealth management division was the destination.

The Degenaars Babb Group, led by the senior financial advisors Glenn Degenaars and Jason Babb, wasn't the only large First Republic team RBC pulled in 2025. It announced in January that it had recruited a group of ex-First Republic advisors managing $1.2 billion.

UBS loses $3.7B team to Morgan Stanley

UBS's string of big departures continued this fall with the loss of a team managing $3.7 billion.

Executive Financial Advisors, which has offices in Dallas, Atlanta and Jacksonville, Florida, departed in November to join Morgan Stanley. The team largely consists of brokers who started their careers at Goldman Sachs' Ayco unit, which helps companies provide employee benefits, before moving to UBS.

The move to Morgan Stanley seems to go against one of the biggest trends in wealth management: Advisors leaving direct employment at wirehouses to work as independent contractors or start their own firms. Despite the steady tilt away from wirehouses, one of the biggest beneficiaries of UBS' defections has been Morgan Stanley.

Merrill loses $3B private wealth team to Wells Fargo

In the race to serve high net worth clients, Wells Fargo gained a leg up with its recruitment this fall of the Munster Freeman Group from Merrill.

The team, led by the private wealth financial advisors Bruce Munster, his son Samuel Munster and David Freeman, had managed $3 billion for Merrill in Manhattan Beach, California; the group also has offices in Scottsdale, Arizona, and Cherry Creek, Colorado.

The three principals had been at Merrill since the mid-2010s and were part of that firm's private wealth management division, which specializes in working with high net worth and ultrahigh net worth clients.

Wells Fargo team with $2.5B goes to Ashton Thomas

Ashton Thomas Private Wealth secured a new office in San Francisco with a prominent advisory team recruited from Wells Fargo.

Mark Cavalier, Jonathan Smith and Gregory Weiss, formerly of the No. 16 Wall Street Private Wealth Management Group of Wells Fargo Advisors, joined Ashton Thomas in January. They had managed $2.5 billion at Wells in San Francisco.

Ashton Thomas was founded in 2010 and was bought by the large RIA-aggregator Arax Investment Partners in September 2023. Arax is among many RIA aggregators now financing their purchases of other firms with private equity support.

Rockefeller draws $2.3B team from UBS

In a big recruiting year for Rockefeller Capital Management, a large team pulled over from UBS stood out.

Chase Newman Riordan Wealth Partners was started under Rockefeller Global Family Office in Florham Park, New Jersey by a group of advisors who broke away from UBS. The team is made up mainly of former members of the Certus Financial Group at UBS, which had overseen $2.3 billion in client assets.

Chase Newman Riordan Wealth Partners is led by the private advisors and managing directors Raymond Chase and Angie Newman, and private advisor and senior vice president Dan Riordan.

Rockefeller is another firm that's enjoyed success recruiting from UBS. Just this month, it pulled over The Tidal Wealth Partners, a three-person team that had managed nearly $1 billion at UBS.

Stifel goes to Oppenheimer for $2.1B team

A regional player sneaked into the list this year with Stifel's recruitment of a prominent West Coast team from Oppenheimer.

The Summa Group, led by the brothers Brian K. Werdesheim and Jeffrey L. Werdesheim, along with Robert W. Dalie and Gary A. Chiate, joined Stifel's offices this summer in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Sherman Oaks, California. The team had managed $2.1 billion at Oppenheimer.

Industry recruiter Phil Waxelbaum, founder of Masada Consulting, said at the time that the team's departure most likely marked Oppenheimer's biggest loss ever.

"This is a big win for Stifel, and it takes Oppenheimer down a peg in the regional rankings," he said.

$2B UBS team leaves to go to Sanctuary Wealth

And UBS rounds off this list with a large team in Florida and South Carolina lost to the RIA aggregator Sanctuary Wealth.

The newly founded 1280 Financial Partners is made up of advisors who had previously managed roughly $2 billion at UBS. The firm has offices in Miami and Fort Myers, Florida; Sandusky, Ohio; and Augusta, South Carolina. Its name refers to the 1,280-mile distance between Fort Myers and Sandusky.

Along with big wirehouse moves, 2025 also marked another record year for RIA mergers and acquisitions. Many of the big RIA aggregators driving the M&A deals receive financial support from private equity firms and other outside investors.

Sanctuary Wealth, for instance, gets backing from the asset manager Azimut and private credit manager Kennedy Lewis Investment Management.