$1.6B UBS team jumps to LPL, 'forced out' by comp changes

UBS advisors keep heading to the exits following the firm's recent compensation changes, with a prominent team departing for LPL Financial in California.

Golden State Wealth Management, a team with roughly $1.6 billion in assets under management and $7.1 million in annual revenue production in Merced, California, has moved with various staff members to LPL. The team is led by the financial advisors Ronald Ewing, Edward Macha, Alex Pittz and Brian Gudgel and came in at the No. 20 spot this year in Forbes' list of the best wealth teams in California. 

Clinton Moore, a vice president of wealth management and financial advisor, is staying behind at UBS. And UBS will maintain a presence in Merced with a pair of advisors, Dan Zacharias and John Jaber, who run a practice managing roughly $500 million in client assets.

Ron Edde, an industry recruiter who helped the team make the move, said their reason for leaving was the same cited by many former UBS teams that have departed for other firms over the past year: changes to the firm's compensation policies.

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Pay changes the 'straw that broke the camel's back'

UBS informed advisors in November of a new pay policy meant to align "compensation with our strategic growth and profitability goals in the U.S." Among other things, the changes affected what members of advisory teams in the U.S. keep as their take-home pay.

The firm eliminated what it had called its Combined Team Grid, which had allowed wealth managers on advisory teams to be paid out a percentage of the group's total production. It instead adopted a Highest Producer Grid, which calculates payouts only as a percentage of the revenue generated by the highest-producing member. 

In July, UBS also ended advisors' ability to receive credit for trailing commissions on sales of mutual funds to clients. Trailing commissions are fees investors pay every year they own a particular investment such as a mutual fund or insurance product.

Edde, the president and CEO of the recruiting firm Millennium Career Advisors, said the team still makes a substantial amount of money from commissions. That revenue source more or less foreclosed any possibility that the Golden State Wealth Management team would drop its brokerage licenses and join LPL purely as a registered investment advisor that would collect fees on assets under management.

Edde said the team had been thinking of going independent for years and became mildly disenchanted with UBS following the wirehouse's purchase of Credit Suisse in 2023 in a deal valued at $3.3 billion. Edde said the Golden State advisors were chafing under cost-cutting measures UBS undertook to "integrate all that mess."

But it was the changes to pay policies that was the "straw that broke the camel's back," Edde said.

"It's the same catalyst that it's been for a lot of the UBS teams that have left," he said. "That's certainly true for the UBS teams I've worked with. And this is not the only one I've moved, although it's one of the largest."

Edde said the team wasn't intent on leaving before the pay changes.

"But they felt like they were almost forced out the door," he said. "They aren't leaving because they hate this firm. They're leaving because of what it's doing." 

UBS declined to comment for this artciel and LPL did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Recent departures from UBS

UBS executives have acknowledged that advisor departures would most likely accelerate as a result of the changes to its compensation policies for U.S. advisors. And teams have been steadily heading to the exit doors ever since.

Just this week, Merrill announced it had picked up advisors formerly managing roughly $610 million at UBS. The private wealth advisors Damian Hedley and Tony Brookfield, who had previously overseen $450 million in client assets, are joining Merrill Private Wealth Management in San Francisco. And Kim Sheets, who had managed $110 million at UBS, is joining Merrill in Corpus Christi, Texas.

RBC Wealth Management has also been a magnet for departing UBS advisors. In July, for instance, it announced it had picked up an eight-member group formerly managing $1.7 billion at UBS. In June, it recruited the nine-member Centennial Wealth Management Group from UBS Wealth Management USA, where it had managed $1.1 billion in client assets. The team will operate out of RBC's branch in Purchase, New York, about an hour north of Manhattan. 

And just last week, RBC announced Carol Mani Johnston had joined its The Evergreen Private Wealth Group, a team managing $1 billion out of San Antonio, Texas. Johnston had previously managed $300 million at UBS.

But RBC and Merrill are far from the only beneficiaries. Advisory teams have also left UBS in recent months for firms such as JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Ameriprise and Raymond James.

In an earnings call in July, UBS reported it ended its third quarter with 5,773 advisors in its Americas unit, which includes the U.S., Canada and Latin America. That was down by 111 advisors from the first quarter of 2025 and by 229 advisors from the second quarter of last year.

Supported independence at LPL and UBS' ongoing losses

By joining LPL, meanwhile, Golden State Wealth Management is jumping to a firm with roughly 29,000 advisors, most of whom are affiliated with the firm as independent contractors. Edde said the Golden State team gave serious consideration to at least five firms, paying in-person visits to all of their home offices.

"It was one of the more extensive due diligence processes I've been involved with," Edde said.

The Golden State team is joining LPL's Strategic Wealth division, which LPL touts as its "supported independence" option. Strategic Wealth is specifically meant for advisors who are leaving wirehouses like UBS and offers them help with starting their independent practices and provides support with technology and back-office functions while letting them run their businesses as they see fit.

Edde said he has his own system for tracking advisor departures. He monitors changes in firm registrations on the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority's BrokerCheck database and corroborates those changes with moves reported in the media and other sources. By his count,164 advisors have left UBS so far this year, a figure well above the 120 who left in 2024.

"I think this next quarter's going to be pretty big again," he said. "There are lots of advisors out looking right now."