Wells Fargo indie channel picks up $1.7B UBS team

In another recruiting win for Wells Fargo, a seven-advisor team has left UBS to join it.

Snow Pine Private Wealth has joined Wells Fargo in Wayzata, Minnesota — west of Minneapolis. The team had previously managed $1.7 billion at UBS.

Snow Pine Private Wealth is led by the financial advisors Derek Cherne, Keith Burke, Andrew Knutson, Daniel Miller, Dean Breitbach, Peter Knutson and Clayton Knutsen. Also joining them are the support staff members Patrick Mulheran, Jacob Johnson, Laurie Knutson, Renee Gubrud and Kathleen Freiderich.

The team specializes in working with entrepreneurs and family business owners.

"Our clients include families with sophisticated financial needs, entrepreneurs, and first-generation wealth builders who created something from nothing," Cherne said in a statement. "They deserve an advisor who can serve them across their entire financial lives, not just one piece of it."

Snow Pine Private Wealth has joined Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network, or FiNet, the firm's unit for advisors operating as independent contractors. Wells Fargo has roughly 12,000 advisors across all its divisions.

Wells Fargo's recent recruiting wins from UBS include:

• Hingham Street Partners, a 16-person team in Boston that had $6.3 billion under management and nearly $39 million in annual revenue production at UBS.
• A team composed of former members of the Frost Saler Coles Wealth Management Group at UBS led by the advisors Brad Saler, Steven Kalodner and Michael Coles. They had managed $687 million in client assets at UBS in Marlton, New Jersey.
• A three-person team that had previously managed $480 million at UBS in Huntsville, Alabama.

UBS has struggled with advisor losses since announcing in 2024 that it was making changes to its compensation system in a bid to boost the profit margin of its U.S. wealth management business. In an earnings call on Feb. 4, UBS reported it ended last year with 5,772 advisors in its Americas unit, which includes Latin America and Canada. That headcount was largely unchanged from the previous quarter but down 3.3% year over year.