UBS loses advisors to Morgan Stanley, Raymond James, Rockefeller: Advisor Moves

July 18, 2025 12:16 PM

The draining sound at UBS continued this week as teams departed for Morgan Stanley, Raymond James and Rockefeller.

Meanwhile, LPL Financial announced a big recruiting deal, and UBS poached a market director for Florida from Bank of America Private Bank. Read about it below.

Tobias Arhelger - stock.adobe.com

UBS brokers leave for Morgan Stanley, Raymond James, Rockefeller

UBS continues to lose advisors to its industry rivals as Morgan Stanley, Raymond James and Rockefeller Capital Management all picked up prominent teams.

Morgan Stanley's recruits consist of two advisory teams: Vista Wealth Management in Purchase, New York, and the Karstadt Lavigne Wealth Management Team in Shrewsbury, New Jersey. Vista Wealth had roughly $780 million in assets under management last year at UBS Wealth Management, according to Forbes. And Karstadt Lavigne had $575 in AUM, according to sources familiar with the move.

Brokers on both teams changed their FINRA registrations from UBS to Morgan Stanley in the past three months. Vista Wealth consists of the financial advisors Sam Giliberti, Sev Dauti, Raymond Hart, Neil Klein and John Cirocco.

Everyone on the Vista team switched registration to Morgan Stanley at the end of June after spending years at UBS. Most of them came to UBS from Dean Witter and Smith Barney, firms acquired by Morgan Stanley.

Meanwhile the Karstadt Lavigne team, which changed its registration in May, is led by the managing director and financial advisor Keith Karstadt, his son Daniel Karstadt, and senior vice president and financial advisor Gabriel Lavigne. Keith Karstadt has 46 years of industry experience and joined UBS in 2002 following stints at E.F. Hutton, Dean Witter and Prudential. Daniel Karstadt has 13 years of industry experience and returned to UBS in 2023 after starting his career there in 2012.

And Lavigne has 16 years of industry experience. He joined UBS in 2013 following stints at Metlife Securities, David Lerner and Merrill.

Separately, a pair of advisors making up the Bartholomew Wealth Group have moved to Raymond James from UBS. The team consists of senior vice president Arthur W. Bartholomew III and vice president Jeffrey King, who both work out of West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania.

Bartholomew has 44 years of industry experience and joined UBS in 2013 after stints at Morgan Stanley and Smith Barney. King has 17 years of experience and joined UBS the same year as Bartholomew following a similar employment history. Raymond James did not respond to requests for information on the team's AUM total.

Industry recruiter Ron Edde, president and the CEO of Millennium Career Advisors, said he expects many more departures from UBS in coming months.

"I'm working with pretty good-size teams that are getting ready to go in the next 45 days or so," he said. "So those are coming."

Meanwhile, Rockefeller Capital Management picked up an eight-person team that had managed roughly $2 billion for UBS in New York.

The team, called Entrepreneurs Group, is led by the private wealth advisors Emily Rubin, Thomas Livacarri and Kenneth Shapiro. Rubin started her career at UBS in 2003. Livacarri started in the industry in 1993 and came to UBS in 2009 following six years at Merrill. Shapiro began at Merrill in 2002 and moved to UBS in 2009. The team's move was first reported by the industry publication AdvisorHub.

UBS executives have acknowledged in recent months that changes made to the firm's compensation policies last year would likely drive some advisors to the exits. UBS reported in April that it has seen a 3% year-over-year decline in its U.S. headcount, which is now just under 6,000.

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LPL pulls advisors with $750M in AUM from Osaic

LPL Financial is extending its reach in Wisconsin with the recruitment of an 11-member team formerly at Osaic.

The Waznik Heike Group has joined LPL in Menomonie, Wisconsin. The team, which had managed roughly $750 million at LPL's independent broker-dealer rival Osaic, is led by the partners Brad Waznik and John Heike. Joining them at LPL are Gene Larock, Steve Helling, Kyle Thorpe, Jon Storing, Tyler Schroyer, Coltin Brehm, Jerry Hagman, Bryan LaVoy and Sam Ferch, along with support staff.

Waznik started his career in 1987 and eventually moved to Woodbury Financial Services in 2004 following stints at various firms. Woodbury was one of several firms that would be rolled up into the formation of the company now known as Osaic (formerly Advisor Group) in 2016.

Heike started his career at Woodbury in 2008 and returned to the firm in 2016 following five years at Northwestern Mutual. LPL said in a statement that the two had worked together for years before forming a team in 2024.

Raymond James recruits advisors with $300M in AUM from Wells Fargo

Raymond James is adding to its division for employee advisors with a team pulled from Wells Fargo.

Katrina Consiglio and Kristen Mahan have joined Raymond James & Associates, the firm's channel for direct-employee advisors, to form Consiglio Mahan Wealth Management in Latham, New York. The pair had formerly managed roughly $300 million in client assets at Wells Fargo."

Consiglio has 26 years of industry experience, practically all of which were with Wells Fargo. Mahan started her career at Wells Fargo in 2009.

Elevation Pointe buys stake in $1B firm started by Raymond James breakaways

Elevation Pointe, a firm that buys minority shares in RIAs and then provides them with various types of support, has taken an ownership stake in a prominent former Raymond James team.

Elevation Pointe announced this week that it had made a minority investment in Waycrest Wealth, a newly formed advisory in Southfield, Michigan. Waycrest was founded by Jay Hack and Lowell Weiss, a pair of former Raymond James advisors now with roughly $1 billion in assets under supervision. Also joining them are the founders' fathers, Paul Hack and Leonard Weiss, both of them industry veterans. Their seven-person team's clients include doctors, business owners, lawyers and philanthropic families, mainly in Michigan and Florida.

Elevation Point receives support from the private equity firm Emigrant Partners. It buys stakes of at least 20% in RIAs and provides them with technology, investment help and back-office support in return. Its minority stake in Waycrest Wealth brings the asset total for its network of partner firms to $8.2 billion.

UBS pulls Florida market director from Bank of America Private Bank

UBS's U.S. wealth management business has turned to Bank of America Private Bank or a market director for a large swath of the gulf coast in Florida.

Jack Heiss, most recently a senior vice president and private client advisor at Bank of America Private Bank, has joined UBS Global Wealth Management US as market director for its offices in Tampa, Clearwater, St. Petersburg, Sarasota and Winter Haven, Florida. These locations fall under UBS' Florida wealth management market, overseen by Market Executive Lane Strumlauf.

Heiss has 35 years of experience in wealth management. He started his career in 1987 as a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch. He also worked as a Florida regional director at Bank of America Investments and as market leader for the firm's global wealth and investment management divisions in Palm Beach and Tampa Bay. Following Bank of America's acquisition of Merrill in 2008, Heiss became responsible for Merrill wealth management in Central Florida.

Heiss will start in his new role following the completion of a contractually required "garden leave" period.

Hightower dips in Osaic well for new chief advisory officer

RIA aggregator Hightower Advisors has gone to Osaic for its first chief advisory officer.

Scott Hadley, most recently senior vice president of RIA Solutions at Osaic, has joined Hightower in a role that will have him supporting the firm's advisors in various ways, including through practice management. He came to Osaic in February 2024, following a 17-year career at Goldman Sachs, where he had worked with Hightower CEO Larry Restieri.

Restieri took the top job following Hightower's announcement in February that former CEO Bob Oros would be stepping down. Oros stepped into the CEO role in 2019 after holding positions at Charles Schwab, LPL Financial, and Fidelity, among other firms. During his time at the helm, Hightower's assets under advisement total went from $57 billion to $1.8 trillion. Oros remains a member of the firm's board.

Restieri joined Hightower after seven years as CEO of Goldman Sachs' Ayco business, which provides workplace financial planning and advisory services. He also held various wealth and asset management roles at Goldman.

Hightower Advisors, based in Chicago, is owned by the private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners. Hightower was founded in 2007 as an RIA for advisors seeking to leave large wirehouses.

RIA AlphaCore recruits chief investment strategist from Blackstone

The large RIA AlphaCore Wealth Advisory has turned to Blackstone to recruit a chief investment strategist.

David Stubbs joins San Diego, California-based AlphaCore from Blackstone's private wealth solutions group, where had been since April 2023. Stubbs will be on AlphaCore's investment committee and work with chief investment officer Eric Gerster on investment research and macroeconomic analysis.

Stubbs's career includes time at JP Morgan, where he served as a spokesman for their wealth management division, providing macroeconomic commentary on national television. AlphaCore has set itself the goals of having a nationally recognized brand while also specializing in working with high net worth clients and family offices.

AlphaCore has grown recently through various mergers and acquisitions. This year, a merger with Callan Capital boosted AlphaCore's assets under management to $6.5 billion. AlphaCore, which has minority backing from the private equity firm Constellation Wealth Capital, also acquired enTrust Wealth Advisors, an RIA working with ultrahigh net worth clients, in January.