Merrill and UBS Push First-Half Wirehouse Advisor Losses Past All of 2025

The four wirehouses ended the first six months of 2026 with 517 fewer experienced advisors than they started with, according to an industry recruiting report covered this week by WealthManagement.com, InvestmentNews and Wealth Solutions Report.

The report counts 1,449 experienced advisors who exited Merrill, Morgan Stanley, UBS and Wells Fargo between January and June, against 932 who were recruited in. Merrill posted a net decline of 404 and UBS a net decline of 182. Wells Fargo finished the half up 46 and Morgan Stanley up 23.

That six-month deficit already tops the group's net loss for the whole of 2025, which the report put at 302 advisors, InvestmentNews reported.

An experienced advisor, for the report's purposes, is one with more than three years of service. Retirements are excluded, and an advisor counts only after registering with a new firm, according to InvestmentNews. Moves between channels inside the same company are also left out. Wells Fargo's total covers both its employee channel and its independent FiNet platform, Wealth Solutions Report noted, and WealthManagement.com reported that a further 135 Wells advisors switched between those channels in the half without being counted as recruits or departures.

Raw headcount is a blunt measure, since a junior hire and a billion-dollar departure cancel out. To get at size, the report tracks large teams. According to WealthManagement.com, 41 teams overseeing $500 million or more left a wirehouse in the half, 20 of them with at least $1 billion, and 12 of the 41 landed at a rival wirehouse.

Merrill's figure carries a caveat. More than 100 of its departures went to J.P. Morgan, which the report reads as a sign that many were Bank of America branch-based advisors rather than the private-client brokers it aims to capture, WealthManagement.com reported. Even with that adjustment, the outlet's coverage said, Merrill still shed a large number of advisors, amid long-running complaints about a bank-driven culture, cross-selling pressure and payout changes.

UBS fared worst relative to its size. WealthManagement.com reported that, although it did not lose the most advisors, UBS has the smallest advisor base of the four, and its coverage tied the losses to culture, ease of doing business, an aging platform and questions about the Swiss bank's commitment to U.S. wealth management.

Morgan Stanley's gain was modest but consistent. Per WealthManagement.com, the report describes it as the steadiest of the group over several years, adding advisors in each of the last five, while its workplace business feeds leads to advisors and fuels fast organic growth.

Wells Fargo was the period's biggest winner. WealthManagement.com attributed that partly to the firm's growing distance from its consumer banking scandal. The report also notes that Wells is the only wirehouse where an advisor can go independent while staying inside the company, a flexibility it frames as a differentiator.

Where the departing advisors went points away from the wirehouse channel. Of those who left one of the four, 46% picked an independent model, either a broker-dealer or a hybrid RIA, and only 24% moved to another wirehouse. WealthManagement.com reported that the wirehouse-to-wirehouse share was down substantially from 2025 and about half the historical rate, and that the independent share would be the largest the report's authors have seen if it holds for the year. Among advisors who stayed in an employee model, RBC Wealth Management, Raymond James and Rockefeller Capital Management were the main gainers, the outlet said.

All three outlets reported that upward of 200 separate firms hired at least one wirehouse advisor during the half. Wirehouse executives speaking privately to InvestmentNews questioned whether third-party tallies of this kind are accurate. The report itself acknowledged strong inbound recruiting at the four firms, InvestmentNews noted, but not enough to offset departures.

Pay is part of the pull. Employee-model packages for desirable wirehouse teams can reach 350% to 425% of trailing 12-month revenue, Wealth Solutions Report said, citing the report, which attributed rising offers to heavier competition and said all four wirehouses are paying near the top of the market.

The broader market was already moving fast before this half. A March edition of the same annual study counted 11,172 advisors with more than three years of service changing firms or platforms in 2025, up 16.2% from 2024, according to Wealth Solutions Report.