Wirehouse advisors

The Zurich-based bank is in the midst of overhauling its U.S. wealth business with a greater priority on mass affluent clients and lower costs.

JPMorgan also builds out the ranks of its private advisory group with execs poached from Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Ernst & Young.

The big payday comes after a year in which the bank made progress toward the removal of a federally imposed asset cap.

Rodney Halvorson says he agreed to join Morgan Stanley only if he could take two wealthy Mexican clients with him. But his transfers were blocked amid heightened money-laundering scrutiny.

The team of three advisors have started a firm called T6 Wealth Management, which will operate out of Morgan Stanley's new offices in Midtown Manhattan.

Citi also announced it had hired Christian Zeinler from UBS to be the head of strategy for Citi Wealth and head of business execution for the private bank.

Citizens meanwhile extends its presence in Florida with a $750 million team from RBC and Envestnet hires a new CEO.

Raymond James also recruited from Charles Schwab, and LPL from Raymond James and Merrill

Regulators took the wirehouses to task for not having policies directing advisors to consider clients' best interests.

Executives say the Bank of America subsidiary likely benefited from clients in 2023 seeking a safe harbor from teetering regional banks.

The number of financial advisors at America's biggest bank dropped slightly from last quarter but was still up from last year.

The mega bank says more than half of its roughly 300,000 are already back in the office every day of the work week.

LPL also drew from Osaic again, RIA aggregators made some big M&A deals and Merrill rehired an executive who left to go to Citi more than six years ago.

Robert Daly was part of a star team that left Morgan Stanley in 2023 to join First Republic and has since been barred from the industry.

Focus Financial Partners also merges two of its RIAs and Captrust buys up two practices together managing nearly $2 billion.

A FINRA arbitration panel sided with a claimant who contended Wells and one of its advisors should have recognized telltale signs of elder fraud when their client decided to give away tens of thousands of shares of Aflac stock.

Cetera also names the next president of its wealth management division and Corient scoops up a $7.9 billion RIA in Maine.

Regulators accused UBS of not doing enough to monitor 22 brokers who generated commissions and sales concessions of syndicate preferred stocks.

The asset sales carry complexity requiring careful thought and expert advice, but they could prove beneficial to some wirehouse breakaways or RIA succession plans.

Homrich Berg also acquires a $6.4 billion RIA and Hightower takes a stake in an $800 million advisory practice.