A UBS wealth management team and an advisor from J.P. Morgan, who managed more than $500 million in combined assets, are joining a regional firm in the Lone Star state.
Patrick Mendenhall, managing partner and head of wealth management at Houston-based U.S. Capital Advisors, says the former UBS Wealth Management Americas team alone is one of the largest to join his firm.
The group, to be based in Houston, is comprised of veteran advisors Todd LaVergne, Nick Erwin, Ryan Ringuet and Aaron Geller.
A fifth advisor, Amanda Ton, formerly of J.P. Morgan Securities, also is joining U.S. Capital. She had been at her previous job for 18 months, according to FINRA records.
LaVergne, according to FINRA, has more than two decades of experience in the financial services industry, and spent the previous 14 years with UBS. Erwin and Ringuet joined the firm in 2007, while Geller started his financial services career at UBS in 2010.
U.S. Capital launched in the same year, and has since grown to about 30 advisors and nearly 100 employees, split between wealth management and capital markets units. The firm has offices in Houston, Austin and Dallas. Mendenhall, a former UBS managing director, says the U.S. Capital also runs an energy equity research business.
The firm has been gearing up for growth this year, adding office space and bringing on new managing directors from Merrill Lynch and Barclays to grow the firm's market share in Texas. It offers full-time employees an equity stake in the business, an offer Mendenhall claims helps recruit top talent.
"We're going to be very attractive to the right kind of producer," says Mendenhall. "We're profitable. We're generating cash. And we're going to bring those advisors here."
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