An advisory team managing roughly $2 billion is leaving UBS Group's private wealth management unit to join the independent firm Beacon Pointe Advisors.
Newport Beach, California-based Beacon Pointe announced Tuesday that it has brought on a team led by William Diehl and Russell Crow— a pair of advisors with nearly 25 years of industry experience — to its offices in Dallas. Beacon Pointe said the move from UBS marks its first recruitment of a former wirehouse team.
Diehl said in an interview Tuesday that he and Crow were looking to run their business using a fiduciary model. He said he and his partner work with roughly 50 high net worth families, offering services ranging from investment advice to estate and tax planning.
"The question has been coming up more often: 'Are you and your firm considered a fiduciary?'" Diehl said. "And we wanted to have a better answer to that question. My partner and I have always tried to put our clients' interests first. So, for the most part, we were already running a fiduciary business within a Wall Street firm."
Beacon Pointe President Matt Cooper said in a press release that, "Russell and Billy are becoming owners in the business, and they'll have a voice — like all our partners — in how our platform is continually enhanced and expanded to serve clients."
A UBS spokesperson declined to comment.
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The fiduciary code of conduct is often held out as the gold standard for the wealth management industry. Fiduciaries are expected to always put their clients' interests first and eliminate all but the most unavoidable conflicts of interest.
Beacon Pointe was founded in 2002 and bills itself as the largest women-owned Registered Investment Advisor in the U.S. It has more than $28 billion in assets under management and 45 offices throughout the country.
The firm is partly owned by
Diehl said he and Crow officially joined Beacon Pointe's already-established team in Dallas in August. He said he does not think the switch from a wirehouse will prevent him and Crow from offering services that clients could previously obtain through UBS.
"Everything we are doing for clients we intend to keep doing in the exact same way," Diehl said. "Now, will our investment philosophy change going forward? I'm always on the lookout for better ways of doing things."
Beacon Pointe said in a press release that its recruitment of Diehl and Crow marks its fifth merger-and-acquisition deal in the Dallas area. Its assets under management in that region could eventually top $5 billion.
Diehl declined to say if he and Crow are under a nonsolication agreement that could hinder any attempts to move clients over from their former practice at UBS. The Swiss-based bank has shown willingness in the past to try to
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UBS has been making its own recruitment push. It announced, for instance, on Oct. 10 that it had added a two-person advisory team
Diehl said he and Crow have been working together since graduating from business school in 1998. They started at Morgan Stanley that same year before moving to Goldman Sachs in 2002 and then UBS in 2009. Neither has any customer complaints or other disclosures, according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority's online database.
Moving with them from UBS were four other team members: Julie Montgomery and Julie Anderson, both senior relationship managers; Pierce Halsted, a senior associate wealth advisor; and Sarah Stubbs, as associate wealth advisor.
