By Ashley Lau
Oct 9 (Reuters) - RBC Wealth Management, a division of theRoyal Bank of Canada , said on Tuesday it added ateam of veteran advisers from Morgan Stanley Wealth Managementto join its Dallas office.
Advisers Dick Nierling, and his two sons, Richard and AlexNierling, and Alan Henry, moved to RBC last week from MorganStanley Wealth Management, where they managed more than $230million in client assets and generated $2.2 million in annualrevenue last year.
"Our story is really resonating with a lot of the wirehouseadvisers," said RBC's Dallas complex director Andy Teller,referring to advisers like the Nierling team that joined RBCfrom the biggest U.S. brokerages owned by major Wall Streetcompanies.
Teller, who was involved in recruiting the team, said RBC'sflat management structure has been a huge selling point forveteran wirehouse brokers who have seen the gap widen betweentheir local branches and senior management after years ofmergers with bigger companies.
"There are two steps between me and the CEO," said Teller,who oversees eight branch offices in the region, adding that RBC"keeps the decision-making local."
The elder Nierling spent four decades at his old firm, whichis now majority-owned by Morgan Stanley . He and his teamwere legacy Citigroup Smith Barney advisers who joinedMorgan Stanley Wealth Management after Smith Barney merged withMorgan Stanley's wealth business in 2009.
Morgan Stanley did not immediately return a request forcomment on the departures.
The elder Nierling joined RBC as a senior vice president,while Henry joined as a vice president and Richard and AlexNierling joined as financial advisers.
With roughly 2,000 advisers managing $227 billion in clientassets, RBC Wealth is about one-tenth the size of the biggestU.S. brokerages. Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, bycomparison, had just under 17,000 advisers managing $1.7trillion in client assets at the end of June.
Many of RBC's recruits in 2012 have come from majorbrokerages, including Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, Bank ofAmerica's Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo Advisors, and UBS WealthManagement Americas.
With those new recruits, RBC has now added at least 28veteran advisers who managed more than $2.4 billion in clientassets at their previous firms, based on moves tracked byReuters. The firm also said last week it added a team of formerUBS Wealth Management Americas advisers in Massachusetts.
(Reporting by Ashley Lau in New York; Editing by JenniferMerritt, Bernard Orr)
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Keywords: RBC WEALTH/