STREET MOVES: UBS Hires 15 Brokers, Adds 124 Year-To-Date

UBS Wealth Management Americas, a unit of UBS AG (UBS, UBSN.VX), recently recruited 15 financial advisers from competitors, boosting its new hire total to 124 year-to-date, up 50% from a year ago, according to a person familiar with the situation.

The advisers, who joined from brokerages including Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and Oppenheimer Holdings Inc. (OPY), together had more than $14 million in annual production and managed $1.5 billion in client assets.

Among the new hires were Michael Winn and David James, who joined the firm's Century City, Calif., office last week from Oppenheimer. The team generated $6 million in fees and commissions, and had $421 million in assets under management. They report to Stephen McCashin, complex director.

Before joining UBS, Winn and James worked at Oppenheimer for eight years, according to Financial Industry Regulatory Authority records.

Other recent joiners include former Morgan Stanley Smith Barney brokers David Scharff, Colin Kowalski and Gary Vance. The team, based in UBS's Centerville, Ohio, office, had $1.7 million in annual production and managed $184 million in client assets. They report to Tim Van Simaeys, branch manager.

Scharff, Kowalski and Vance worked at Citigroup Inc. (C) for nearly 16 years and remained at the joint venture with Morgan Stanley (MS) for about two years, regulatory records show.

Representatives for Morgan Stanely and Oppenheimer didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

(STREET MOVES chronicles the migration of executives on Wall Street, with a particular emphasis on financial advisers with more than $1 million in annual production and who manage more than $100 million in client assets.)

-By Brett Philbin, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2173; brett.philbin@dowjones.com

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