HighTower Snags UBS Advisor Team

By Cyril Tuohy
InsuranceNewsNet

Well, that didn’t take long at all.

HighTower Advisors has announced that TC Wealth Management, an advisory team with $550 million in assets under management, joined the advisory group on Jan. 5, the second business day of the new year.

TC Wealth Management comes to HighTower from UBS Wealth Management and it is HighTower’s first announcement of the year after closing 13 “transitions” in 2014, HighTower said in a news release.

Michael Parker, HighTower’s national director of enterprise development, said the new team would “gain immediate access to resources,” including HighTower’s Blueprint for Growth benchmarking study, which is designed to help accelerate the growth of advisory firms.

The team includes J. Emmett Towey, J. Michael Cantore III, both partners and managing directors; Michael G. Tobin, a director, and Jennifer Doran, an operations director.

At UBS, the team operated as the Towey Cantore Group. The group joined UBS in 2007 from Citigroup Smith Barney.

Towey said that joining HighTower gives the advisory “flexibility to deliver even more sophisticated advice and higher quality investment to meet our client’s’ needs.”

Advisory groups routinely leave — and join — big wirehouses like Morgan Stanley Wealth Management and Wells Fargo Advisors.

Advisors leave large wealth managers for smaller independent advisory groups because there is more freedom and independence, and because advisors can fulfill their entrepreneurial drives more easily.

Conversely, advisors join national wirehouses or regional broker-dealers because they need a broader network with more back-office support to help them grow.

Hundreds of advisors move from one business model to another, and sometimes back again, every year.

Among other moves last year, the high net worth advisory firm of Esposito, Kiker and Associates of Glen Ellyn, Ill., an advisory with $150 million in assets, joined Commonwealth Financial Network, according to the Advisor Center Blog.

The advisory was formerly affiliated with MassMutual Financial Group.

In an example of a small advisory moving to a larger network, Minnesota-based advisors Howard Richards and Jim Goodland, a team with about $175 million in assets, moved to NFP Advisor Services Group last March, according to The Advisor Center, a support network for advisors.

Advisors have the own personal and professional reasons for joining — or leaving — one network over another.

In the back of their minds, however, are trends that might influence their decisions in 2015, writes Tom Daley, CEO of The Advisor Center.

The consolidation among broker/dealers “perpetuates universal uncertainty,” among advisors, Daley writes, and the lack of financial advisory businesses for sale means it’s difficult for small, independent advisors to grow unless they join a network.

InsuranceNewsNet Senior Editor Cyril Tuohy has covered the financial services industry for more than 15 years. Cyril may be reached at cyril.tuohy@innfeedback.com.

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Cyril Tuohy is a writer based in Pennsylvania. He has covered the financial services industry for more than 15 years. He can be reached at cyril.tuohy@innfeedback.com.