$1.25B AUM ex-First Republic team exits JPMorgan, joins Janney

Nearly three years after acquiring First Republic Bank, JPMorgan is still seeing advisors from that former private wealth powerhouse slip away to rival firms.

The Apollo Group — a prominent six-person team First Republic previously recruited from Morgan Stanley — left JPMorgan earlier this month to join Janney Montgomery Scott in New York. The group, led by longtime advisors Steve Condos, Kenneth Morris and Jared Katzman, had managed roughly $1.25 billion and produced $12.6 million in revenue over the past year.

Condos, Morris and Katzman were among hundreds of First Republic advisors who joined JPMorgan in 2023 after their firm was bought out of government receivership following its collapse amid a regional banking panic. Since then, some of the biggest industry recruiting deals have involved former First Republic advisors.

They include:

• The Degenaars Babb Group, an 11-person team in New York that had roughly $5 billion under management when it was recruited by RBC Wealth Management last year.
• The Pensato Slayne Group, an advisory duo that had managed $1.2 billion in client assets when it also joined RBC last year in New York.
• The Tiano Smyth Group, a 12-person team out of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, that was managing roughly $3.5 billion when it left to join Merrill in spring 2024.

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'The bureaucracy at JPMorgan is stifling'

Ron Edde, an industry recruiter and the founder of Millennium Career Advisors, said a common complaint at JPMorgan is that regular advisors are too often in competition for clients and accounts with the firm's private bank advisors, who specialize in working with high net worth investors. Edde said the sheer size of JPMorgan was no doubt off-putting to many advisors accustomed to First Republic's much-smaller setting.

For The Apollo Group, which Edde did not help move, Janney Montgomery Scott was likely a "far superior environment," he said.

"Reportedly, the bureaucracy at JPMorgan is stifling," he said.

The Apollo Group, which did not respond to a request for comment, joined First Republic in 2020 from Morgan Stanley, where it had been part of a private wealth group working with clients worth $20 million or more. Condos began his career at Lehman Bros. in 1990 and moved through various firms before joining Smith Barney in 2005, just four years before it was partly acquired by Morgan Stanley. Morris started in the industry 2000 and joined Smith Barney in 2003. Katzman started his career in 2009 and moved to Morgan Stanley the following year.

Forbes put the group at No. 85 on its list of Best In-State Wealth Management Teams for New York this year.

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JPMorgan's legal entanglements with former advisors

JPMorgan, which declined to comment for this article, has frequently shown willingness to file lawsuits against advisors who leave for rival firms. Former First Republic advisors have been no exception.

JPMorgan sued 16 ex-First Republic advisors in spring 2024 in federal court in California over their attempt to avoid having to pay back $90 million in recruiting loans they received as an incentive to join First Republic from other firms. The court eventually dismissed the lawsuit after finding that it had no jurisdiction over the case.

Meanwhile, at least one of the former First Republic advisors has been ordered to pay back a substantial recruiting loan. Steven H. Levine, who left First Republic in April 2023 to join Morgan Stanley, was ordered in 2024 to pay back more than $11.5 million in outstanding debt left on his recruiting loans. (A recruiting loan is usually "forgiven" if the advisor who receives it doesn't change firms for a set number of years, often between seven and 10.)

Speaking at an industry conference in late 2024, JPMorgan CEO of Community and Consumer Banking Marianne Lake said JPMorgan had retained roughly 75% of the former First Republic advisors and clients it took on through its acquisition the previous year. JPMorgan, which has more than 6,000 client advisors and 4,000 private bank advisors, hasn't since provided a public update of that figure.