UBS recruits Merrill Lynch veterans with $1B

UBS has recruited two Merrill Lynch teams that were managing a total of about $1 billion in client assets, UBS said.

The new hires had spent their entire careers at Merrill before switching firms.

The moves come approximately a year after UBS said it would reduce its recruiting efforts in order to reallocate resources to its current brokers. The Swiss firm is not alone in making such announcements; in recent months, both Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley have said they would cut back in recruiting.

UBS NYC Headquarters Bloomberg News photo
A woman exits the UBS building in New York on June 9, 2003. UBS AG, Europe's largest bank by assets, is dropping the PaineWebber and Warburg brands from its brokerage and investment bank today, scrapping two of the best-known names on Wall Street and in the City of London. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg News.

Despite its stated intentions, however, UBS has continued to occasionally pull in big recruits. Last month, UBS brought in a team generating $5.4 million in annual revenue, also from Merrill Lynch.

According to UBS’s latest announcement, former Merrill advisers Jackie Kunkel and her brother Don, both based in Cincinnati, joined UBS late last month. Jackie Kunkel started her career at Merrill Lynch in 1987, and Don Kunkel began his career at the firm in 2000, according to FINRA BrokerCheck records.

Ex-Merrill advisers Brian Meulebrouck and George Anders joined UBS in Birmingham, Michigan.

Anders had been with Merrill since 1976, per BrokerCheck, and Meulebrouck joined the wirehouse in 1995. Their relationship, however, stretches back further than the 1990s; Anders had worked with Meulebrouck’s father until his recent retirement from Merrill, according to a UBS spokeswoman.

A spokeswoman for Merrill Lynch was not available for immediate comment.

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