Wells Fargo pulls $3B private wealth team from Merrill

Wells Fargo is bolstering its credentials with high net worth clients with a trio of prominent private wealth advisors pulled from Merrill.

The Munster Freeman Group joined Wells Fargo Advisors in Manhattan Beach, California, south of Los Angeles on Friday, Wells confirmed this week. The team had managed $3 billion in client assets at Merrill.

The Munster Freeman Group is led by private wealth financial advisors Bruce Munster, his son Samuel Munster and David Freeman and also has offices in Scottsdale, Arizona, and Cherry Creek, Colorado. The three principals have been at Merrill since the mid-2010s and were part of that firm's private wealth management division, which specializes in working with high net worth and ultrahigh net worth clients.

The Bruce Munster Group's prominence has been recognized through various industry accolades. Forbes this year gave the team the No. 8 spot on its "Best-in-State Wealth Management Teams" in California and the No. 68 spot among "America's Top Wealth Management Teams Private Wealth."

Munster started his career at UBS in 1999, moved to Morgan Stanley in 2007 and then Merrill in 2015. Freeman began at UBS in 2005 and then followed the same career path as Munster. Samuel Munster started at Merrill in 2018.

At Wells Fargo, they'll report to Los Angeles market leader Paul Vannuki.

"They were drawn to our ability to serve private wealth clients with comprehensive resources, including our partnership with Wells Fargo's investment and commercial banking," Vannuki said in a statement.

Merrill did not immediately return a request for comment.

Wells Fargo's recruitment of the Munster Freeman Group comes at a time when more and more firms are jockeying to work more with wealthy and ultrawealthy investors. Merrill has laid particular emphasis on this group of clients in earnings calls and a recent investor day presentation.

Lindsay Hans, president and co-head of Merrill Wealth Management, told investors at the latter event that Merrill's parent, Bank of America, has roughly 11.5 million customers falling into the high net worth or ultrahigh net worth categories. Only about 1.5 million of them are now Merrill clients.

"The opportunity is enormous, and we're squarely focused on the execution," Hans said.

Both Wells Fargo and Merrill have ceased providing regular updates on their advisor headcounts. When Wells last reported its figure, in January 2023, it stood at around 12,000. As for Merrill, Hans said at the investor day that the number stands at around 15,000 for Bank of America's global wealth and investment management business, which also includes BofA's private bank.