UBS

The team, featuring three industry veterans, has opened a new Washington office.

The new advisors have joined the firm from rivals including Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley, according to an internal memo.

The wirehouse is ballyhooing once below-the-radar hires. Now it should rejoin the Broker Protocol.

“We are looking at those issues about consolidation as one part of the equation,” Chief Executive Officer Sergio Ermotti said.

The Bay Area advisors had worked at Merrill for nearly two decades.

The bank has picked up a few notable recruits this year, including a $6.6 billion team in April.

The promotions broaden the pool of potential candidates to eventually succeed CEO Sergio Ermotti.

After a year marred by huge legal fines, questions about succession planning and a deepening slump in share prices, CEO Sergio Ermotti unveiled a revitalized board and replaced wealth management co-head Martin Blessing.

UBS Global Wealth Management, which oversees more than $2.48 trillion in invested assets, has gone underweight on equities for the first time since the euro-zone crisis.

As much as $18 billion of inflows to money market funds last week were partly driven by the desire to “take some chips off the table,” an expert says.