UBS Loses $1.3B Cullman/Holt Team to Wells Fargo FiNet Practice Ascend in Ohio

The Cullman/Holt Group, with about $1.3 billion in client assets, left UBS on Sept. 29 for Ascend Advisory Group, a Dublin, Ohio, practice on Wells Fargo's FiNet platform.

UBS has lost another central Ohio team to the Wells Fargo independent channel. The Cullman/Holt Group, which reported roughly $1.3 billion in client assets as of July 8, has folded into Ascend Advisory Group, a Dublin, Ohio, practice that clears through Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network, known as FiNet. Ascend announced the addition on Sept. 29, and BrokerCheck shows both team leaders registered with FiNet in Dublin on that date.

The group is led by Jeff Scott Cullman (CRD 2607080), who held the managing director title at UBS, and William Bruce Holt (CRD 4562211), who goes by Bruce and was a senior vice president there. Seven people made the move in total. Joining the two leaders are Ben Krajnak, a financial advisor; Connie M. Dennis, who serves as team administrator and senior registered client associate; Shannon Borton and Sol Gamertsfelder, both registered client associates; and Conor Holt, a client associate. Wealth Management reported that the team had been working out of Upper Arlington, a Columbus suburb a short drive from Ascend's offices in Dublin's Bridge Park district.

Their registration records tell two different career stories. Cullman entered the business in April 1995 at Prudential Securities and stayed through the 2003 combination that put Prudential's retail brokerage inside Wachovia Securities, a firm Wells Fargo later absorbed. He moved to UBS Financial Services in June 2005 and spent about 21 years there. For him, then, the switch is a return to a Wells Fargo lineage in a new, independent form. Holt has worked for only one broker-dealer before now: he registered with UBS in October 2002 and remained there for about 24 years. Holt holds the Series 65 and 66 advisory licenses, and Cullman holds the Series 63 and Series 3, along with the Series 7 both men carry. Neither BrokerCheck record lists a customer dispute, regulatory action or other disclosure.

Ascend is a tuck-in destination rather than a startup. Anthony Joachim "Tony" Reilly (CRD 2206393), its chief executive, founded the practice in 2001 with $27 million in assets, according to the firm. His BrokerCheck file shows him registering in 1992, affiliating with Royal Alliance Associates in 2001 and moving to FiNet in April 2009. The firm says it crossed $2.5 billion in assets under management in June and works with clients in 44 states, and its website now lists Cullman and Holt among about 15 advisors. Reilly's record carries one disclosure, a 2009 customer complaint alleging $50,605 in losses that was closed with no action.

In its own announcement, Ascend quoted Cullman describing the appeal as big-firm resources paired with a boutique's direct client relationships, and quoted Holt saying the decision came down to time spent with Reilly. FiNet president John Tyers said in a statement carried by Wealth Management and InvestmentNews that the hire reflected both what Reilly had built and the tools available on the FiNet platform. UBS's comment on the departure, if any, did not appear in the reports reviewed for this story.

The move fits a pattern that has accelerated since UBS reworked its U.S. advisor pay in 2025, trimming payouts for some producers and steering incentives toward wealthier households. Wealth Management, citing an industry recruiting report, said Wells Fargo was the biggest single recipient of departing UBS teams last year, landing 11 of them. FiNet's own announcements show the trend running through 2026. Snow Pine Private Wealth, a Wayzata, Minn., group with more than $1.7 billion, joined from UBS on March 3. Touchstone Wealth Partners, which oversees $2.1 billion from offices in Toledo, Ohio, and Bonita Springs, Fla., followed on April 10. Cullman/Holt makes at least three UBS teams of $1 billion or more to land at FiNet this year, two of them in Ohio.

The structure is also worth noting. Rather than launching their own FiNet firm, Cullman and Holt joined an existing practice, which takes on compliance, office and operations work that a startup would have to build from scratch. That gives wirehouse veterans a route into independence with less business-building risk, and it lets established FiNet owners such as Reilly grow by recruiting rather than by acquisition.

UBS has pushed back on the outflow. Wealth Management reported that the firm has stepped up recruiting and introduced a retire-in-place program that the recruiting report says can pay up to 300% of trailing-12-month production over the sunset period, and the report expects 2026 to be the low point for UBS advisor losses. Net new assets improved in the second quarter, but advisor headcount has not yet shown the same turn, according to that report. For Wells Fargo, the Ohio pickups add to a run of independent-channel recruiting that has relied heavily on teams leaving UBS.