Morgan Stanley Hires Seven Advisors From Rivals

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney (MSSB ) has hired six financial advisers from UBS and one from Charles Schwab, a spokesperson confirmed Monday, July 12.

Robert Seaman, Brian Lippert, Mark Morena and Kent Beal moved to Morgan Stanley's Canton, Ohio, office. The former-UBS team reportedly earns about $2 million in yearly commissions and fees and has some $290 million in assets under management (AUM).

The team was at UBS for three and a half years. It now reports to Canton branch manager Jason E. Haines.

Another UBS team, Constantine Kallenekos and John Marino, joined Morgan Stanley Smith Barney in New York. The duo, which had been with Morgan Stanley for four years, produces close to $1.5 million in commissions and fees a year and has $127 million in assets.

The two will work at the MSSB office at 590 Madison Avenue and report to complex manager Michael Marchassalla.

On the West Coast, Benjamin Woo joined MSSB from Charles Schwab. The San Francisco-based broker has yearly commissions and fees of $1.4 million and about $140 million in assets.

He had been with Schwab for more than eight years and now reports to MSSB's Marin complex manager David Jernigan.

Morgan Stanley is the largest wirehouse brokerage in terms of advisors, with 18,140 in the first quarter vs. 15,119 for Wells Fargo Advisors and 15,005 for Merrill Lynch.

Morgan Stanley also tops the charts in terms of assets under management in its wealth-management unit with $1.5 trillion vs. $1.45 trillion for Merrill.

However, in terms of average assets per advisor, Merrill stands at about $97 million per FA vs. Morgan Stanley with $88 million. UBS, with roughly 6,900 FAs in the Americas and $690 billion in assets in the region, reports that its advisors have about $100 million on average (after converting assets from Swiss francs, its reporting currency, to U.S. dollars).