RBC hits UBS with another recruiting coup, drawing $2.8B team

RBC Wealth Management has snagged a 15-member team managing more than $2 billion from UBS Group.

RBC Wealth Management, a subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada, announced Thursday that it had recruited The 770 Group, an Atlanta-based team that had formerly managed $2.8 billion for UBS. The team is led by managing directors William Pahl Jr., James Casey Jones, Scott Serafin, Jefferson Pace II and senior vice president Christine Lizaso.

The group's name refers to the area code encompassing Atlanta's wealthy northern suburbs.

"RBC Wealth Management is the ideal fit for our clients and for our multigenerational team, ensuring we can continue to serve our clients' needs for generations to come," Pahl said in a statement.

A UBS spokesperson declined to comment on the move.

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The 770 Group is the second Atlanta-area advisory with multiple billions of assets under management that RBC Wealth has snagged from UBS in as many years. RBC announced in August 2023 that it had recruited a 10-person team formerly managing $5.5 billion for UBS in Atlanta.

That team, formally called the ESOP Group, came as the biggest recruitment deal in RBC's history. It resulted in a federal lawsuit accusing the former UBS advisors of violating nonsolication agreements barring them from reaching out to ex-clients for a year after leaving. 

The suit was voluntarily dismissed by UBS in January so its dispute with RBC could be settled by an arbitration panel administered by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the broker-dealer industry's self-regulator. A decision is still pending.

Also in August last year, RBC recruited a team formerly managing $1.1 billion for UBS in Columbus, Ohio. The following month, it recruited an advisory practice in Leawood, Kansas, with $1 billion under management for UBS.

Ron Edde, an industry recruiter and the president and the CEO of Millennium Career Advisors, said he has placed a number of advisors with RBC over the years and almost all of them have been happy with the moves. He said RBC doesn't have the biggest recruiting deals in the wealth management industry, but it also doesn't offer the lowest.

Edde said he thinks the firm's appeal lies partly in its strong international presence — an important consideration for advisors with clients overseas. He also said RBC has an exceedingly clean reputation.

"The people who go there, they are generally looking for no reputational risks," Edde said. "RBC keeps its nose pretty clean. They are generally pretty well regarded."

"The addition of yet another prestigious and innovative team at RBC Wealth Management demonstrates we continue to be the firm-of-choice for leading advisors in the industry," Tom Sagissor, the president of RBC Wealth Management-U.S, said in a statement.

Pahl, Jones, Serafin, Pace and Lizaso were all at Citigroup before joining UBS in 2009. Their years of industry experience range from 18, for Serafin, to 36, for Pahl.

Joining them at RBC are John Ramsey, Rob Joyner and William Pahl (the son of William Pahl Jr.), all senior financial associates; Claire DuBow, a senior business associate; Lauren Riepenhoff, Shelley Davidson and Brantley Geraghty, all senior investment associates; Aranza Barajas, an investment associate; and Dorie Downs and Parker Langham, both client associates.