Merrill news

Merrill news for wirehouse financial advisors: leadership, regulation, and firm strategy.

• RBC Pulls $2B BofA Private Bank Duo in La Jolla

  Second BofA Private Bank hire into RBC La Jolla in about a month — Behun (MD) and Harris (SVP) with $2B+ firm-reported assets, under a Merrill-trained SoCal complex director, inside RBC's push to add 600 U.S. advisors by 2029. Private bank duo, left BofA Private Bank, joined RBC, La Jolla, $2B

• Merrill's 2027 Advisor Pay Plan Keeps the Grid Flat, Raises the Growth Award Bar and Adds a Lending Bonus

  Merrill's 2027 advisor compensation plan keeps the core grid unchanged and moves the incentives into growth, banking and lending awards.

• Wells Fargo and Merrill Pay $4.4M to Eight States Over Minimum Commissions on Tiny Trades

  Merrill Lynch and two Wells Fargo broker-dealers will pay a combined $4.4 million and refund clients after eight states found they charged outsized minimum commissions on very small stock trades.

• BofA Takes $1.2B Money-Laundering Penalty, and Merrill's Own SAR Record Sits Close Behind

  Federal regulators hit Bank of America with more than $1.21 billion in anti-money-laundering and sanctions penalties on Oct. 13, and the findings point at the same monitoring system Merrill Lynch relies on for its own suspicious activity reporting.

• Merrill's Singer Maxey Team Joins Raymond James in Bend, Oregon

  Singer Maxey Wealth Management left Merrill for Raymond James in Bend with about $4.7 million in reported annual production, clearing WirehouseHUB's automatic coverage bar for wirehouse moves. Singer Maxey, left Merrill, joined Raymond James, Bend, $450M

• 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.

• Merrill Adds About $770M in Teams From Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo

  Merrill has pulled in two advisory groups that together report roughly $770 million in client assets, according to InvestmentNews, splitting the haul between a New York Park Avenue market hire out of Morgan Stanley and a Boca Raton addition from Wells Fargo Advisors. left Morgan Stanley, joined Merrill, $770M

• Merrill Agrees to Pay $39 Million to Settle Merrill Edge Retirement Cash-Sweep Class Action

  The proposed deal, which still needs a federal judge's approval, would end a 2019 suit claiming Merrill Edge retirement savers earned a fraction of a percent on swept cash while other brokerages paid about 2%.

• Greenwood Wealth Partners' David Lorbiecki-Led $1.25B Team Exits D.M. Kelly for Raymond James as Merrill Bleeds Advisors to UBS and Ameriprise

  Merrill Lynch is hemorrhaging talent in both coastal markets and the Midwest simultaneously. If your book sits between $120M and $1.25B, every major platform—Raymond James, UBS, and Ameriprise—is actively building a case for your move right now. Greenwood Wealth Partners, left D.M. Kelly, joined Raymond James, $1.25B

• Merrill Lands $1.2B Aliaskari Group From Morgan Stanley in McLean

  Merrill pulled a named PWM team back from Morgan Stanley — Aliaskari left Merrill in 2012 and just returned with $1.2B and two partners, a concrete wire-to-wire win under Moynihan’s more-advisors mandate. Aliaskari Group, left Morgan Stanley, joined Merrill, McLean, $1.2B

• John Pham's Billion-Dollar Merrill Lynch Team Joins UBS in Silicon Valley

  Assets Under Management (AUM): about $1.3 Billion Trailing 12-Month Revenue: about $8 Million Previous Office: Santana Row (San Jose, CA) New Firm: UBS John Pham team, left Merrill, joined UBS, Silicon Valley, $1B+

• Merrill Raids Morgan Stanley's $13B Book While Morgan Stanley Reframes Headcount Losses as an Asset Story

  If you're a high-AUM producer at either firm, your phone is about to ring. Both wirehouses are competing fiercely for experienced teams—they're just describing the battlefield differently. Know your market value before someone else defines it for you.

• BofA CEO Moynihan Tells Merrill It Needs More Advisors to Unlock Growth — Here's What That Means for Recruiting

  Merrill Lynch is actively competing for experienced lateral hires again — advisors at rival wirehouses are now a primary recruitment target, and deal structures are likely to improve as the firm races to fill geographic gaps. It Needs More Advisors, left Morgan Stanley

• Merrill Poaches $1.2B UBS Team in Santa Fe: John Vazquez & Manuel Monasterio Flip the Script in the Desert Southwest

  Merrill is running a systematic high-AUM recruiting playbook across regional markets—if you're at UBS, Morgan Stanley, or Wells Fargo managing a book north of $1B, expect a call. The compensation packages are real, and the Desert Mountain market is clearly a target. left UBS, joined Merrill, Santa Fe, $1.2B

• Citi Hires $3B Private Banker from Bank of America

  Citi is adding senior private-bank talent as it expands its wealth platform, but the reported asset figure is not a standardized measure of transferred assets. Private banker, left Bank of America, joined Citi, $3B

• John Vazquez & Manuel Monasterio Bring $1.2B, $4.7M in Production from UBS to Merrill Lynch in Santa Fe

  If you're a high-producing UBS team watching your colleagues defect, Merrill's recruiting machine is clearly writing checks big enough to move $1.2 billion books out of New Mexico. Know your number. Vazquez / Monasterio team, left UBS, joined Merrill, $1.2B

• UBS Recruits $500M Merrill Team in Bellevue

  The Bellevue move gives UBS a $500 million planning-focused practice in the Pacific Northwest. left Merrill, joined UBS, Bellevue, $500M

• NewEdge Lands $3.1B BofA Private Bank Team in Florida

  NewEdge is using its employee wealth channel to recruit beyond traditional brokerage teams, adding another multibillion-dollar private-bank group in two weeks.

• Al Hammond's $13B Graystone Team Defects to Merrill in One of 2026's Largest Wirehouse Moves

  This move signals Merrill's willingness to deploy serious transition capital to capture institutional consulting AUM at scale — and confirms that even entrenched Graystone teams are in play. Al Hammond team, left Morgan Stanley (Graystone), joined Merrill, $13B

• Merrill Pulls Morgan Stanley Advisors Into Chicago North & Nashville While LPL Raids Cetera Across Two States

  If you're at Morgan Stanley in Chicago or Nashville, expect a Merrill recruiter call soon—and if you're at a mid-size IBD like Cetera, LPL's checkbook is clearly open. The battleground is every major metro market, and transition packages are only getting richer. left Morgan Stanley, joined Merrill

• Federal Judge Blocks Merrill Lynch From Dragging Dynasty Financial Into FINRA Arbitration Over OpenArc Breakaway

  Wirehouses can no longer assume FINRA arbitration clauses in advisor contracts automatically bind third-party RIA support platforms like Dynasty. This ruling tilts the playing field toward breakaway teams and their platform partners, making the independent channel marginally safer to land in.

• UBS Raids BofA's Florida Private Bank for a $1.3B Team Flying Below Radar

  UBS is targeting non-registered private bank talent — relationship managers and trust officers who move assets without appearing on BrokerCheck — as a stealth recruiting lane that bypasses the public scoreboard entirely. If your firm isn't watching this channel, it's already behind. Private bank team, left BofA Private Bank, joined UBS, $1.3B

• UBS Lands $1.3B Tampa Team Poached Directly from Bank of America Private Bank

  UBS is targeting Bank of America's private banking clientele in high-growth Florida markets — if you're a BofA advisor in the Southeast managing significant AUM, expect a call. Private bank team, left BofA Private Bank, joined UBS, Tampa, $1.3B

• Swiss, Not European

  This article examines a common perception among financial advisors considering UBS and explains why Switzerland's regulatory environment differs significantly from the European Union. Swiss / European team, left Merrill

• K. Shaun Cosby & Edward Powell Pull $460M Book From Merrill, Hand Morgan Stanley a $5M Birmingham Win

  Morgan Stanley has now poached multiple high-producing Merrill teams out of Birmingham in quick succession. If you're a Merrill advisor in the Southeast watching your comp structure, this is your peers voting with their feet—and Morgan Stanley is clearly dangling the right incentives to close the deal. left Merrill, $460M

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