RBC Wealth Management picked up four more First Republic advisors managing $955 in combined assets this week, as fallout deepened from the San Francisco bank's bleak earnings report. First Republic revealed Monday a deposit loss of $102 billion from the past quarter's banking crisis and said it would lay off up to 25% of staff.
Mark Allen Friedman and Mitchell Ryan Peters changed their registrations in BrokerCheck to RBC on Thursday, although they were still registered with First Republic as of Friday morning. RBC confirmed the news in a press release Friday and said they were joining as the Friedman Peters Group. Friedman and Peters managed $400 million in client assets and will join RBC's San Francisco office as managing directors and financial advisors.
Separately, on Tuesday Brian Addington also joined RBC Wealth's San Francisco office as a managing director and financial advisor, reporting $300 million in client assets. And Theresa Allen joined its Newport Beach office on Monday as managing director and financial advisor, reporting $255 million in client assets. RBC confirmed the news in a press release Tuesday. Both brokers are still registered with First Republic as well, as of this writing.
The moves come as RBC Wealth Management, whose parent company Royal Bank of Canada is the world's 10th largest bank by market capitalization, steps up its game in both marketing to next-generation clients and pitching advisors on its stability, resources and low-pressure culture compared to the wirehouses.
That pitch, and others made by regional firms like Stifel this week that boasted a strong liquidity profile, is likely falling on welcome ears for First Republic brokers — many of whom had already been veterans of the wirehouse world. Friedman and Peters had left UBS for First Republic in 2017. Addington had been a longtime Merrill Lynch broker when First Republic snatched him up in 2020. Allen had been with First Republic since 2010, joining from UnionBanc, according to her BrokerCheck records.
"RBC Wealth Management continues to add phenomenal people running top-tier practices in Northern California," Michael Schipper, Northern California Complex director at RBC Wealth Management in the U.S., said in a statement Friday on the Friedman Peters Group. "We are thrilled to welcome Mark and Mitch to our client-centric culture."
Commenting on Tuesday in a separate statement, Schipper said Addington "is well-respected in the San Francisco community for developing lasting relationships with clients."
"Theresa is another fantastic addition to our rapidly growing Newport Beach office," Michael Melton, Southern California Complex Director at RBC Wealth Management in the U.S., said in a statement Tuesday on Allen's move.
Two weeks ago, RBC had already scored a $1 billion team of First Republic advisors, unsolicited, in that same Newport Beach office.
Earlier this week, several other advisors also left First Republic following its earnings disclosure that it had lost around 10% of its wealth staff who had managed under 20% of the firm's wealth assets as of the end of the first quarter. The bank's stock tanked to all-time lows following its brief earnings call, where bank executives declined to take questions from analysts. Its market capitalization dipped below $1 billion on Wednesday, although it was back up above that mark as of Friday. Reuters said Friday that U.S. officials were in "urgent" talks to rescue the bank.
J.P. Garofalo, who had left Morgan Stanley for First Republic in March as part of a six-person team that had managed $1.2 billion of assets, is rejoining his old employer unsolicited as a junior team member, a company spokesperson confirmed in an email Thursday. The news was first reported in Wealth Management. Garofalo's teammates, including advisors Alexander Kadish and Nicholas Davey, are not coming with him, Morgan Stanley said.
A JPMorgan Chase spokesperson confirmed that J.P. Morgan Advisors had hired Catherine Chase Kramer and Wendi Doyle on Wednesday. They managed $1.3 billion in assets at First Republic, AdvisorHub reported, citing Forbes data from this year. Asked if the hires were unsolicited, the bank declined to speak on the record. JPMorgan employees and those at some other big banks, including Wells Fargo, Citi and Bank of America, had been instructed in internal memos to not poach employees of competitors made vulnerable by last month's bank runs.
UBS on Tuesday also hired Brian Zakrocki and Joseph Wladyka as managing directors and Private Wealth Advisors in New York City, according to an emailed press release. The advisors had managed over $4 billion of assets when they joined First Republic in 2020 from Goldman Sachs.
Regional leader and wealth advisor Daniel Lee also left First Republic to join registered investment advisor Certuity as a partner, chief revenue officer and wealth advisor on Wednesday, AdvisorHub reported.
AdvisorHub said earlier in the week that the total count of First Republic advisors who had left since the events of last month's bank crisis was at least 43.
While there is still a chance the bank could stabilize and see attrition taper off, there is likely to be more departures as advisors face pressure from clients to leave for any place perceived as safer — whether it be a wirehouse, a regional firm, a firm in the supported independence space or an RIA.
However, they're likely to have to sacrifice pay in the meantime since First Republic was known to offer some of the highest transition deals in the market, as high as 400% of trailing 12-month production.
"To the extent that the reputational damage at First Republic is such that people are pulling their wealth management assets, then maybe that would work for an advisor to say,' You know what, I'm going to leave. I'll take a lower payout because the risk I have is, I'm going to lose assets and customers,'" Jared Shaw, an analyst at Wells Fargo, said in an interview.
