ON THE MOVE-RBC Wealth lands former UBS broker manager

By Ashley Lau

Oct 5 (Reuters) - RBC Wealth Management, a division of the Royal Bank of Canada , said on Friday it hired a veteran adviser and manager from UBS Wealth Management Americas, the brokerage owned by the Swiss Bank UBS AG .

Mark Rabbe, a former UBS branch manager, moved to RBC in September after more than a decade at his old firm, where he also managed $85 million in client assets. Rabbe joined RBC as a branch director based in Burlington, Massachusetts, also overseeing the firm's satellite office in Andover.

"We've been in those markets for a long time, so he's taking over a very good situation," said RBC complex director Paul J. Leyden in an interview on Friday.

Leyden said the flat management structure at RBC, where Rabbe is "only two steps removed" from senior management, has attracted veteran advisers and managers like Rabbe, who came from bigger brokerages.

"We feel we're still a small company inside a giant company, so an individual adviser or branch director has access to the resources and talent at RBC, and are not competing with the thousands and thousands of advisers (at bigger firms)," he said.

RBC Wealth Management, with its roughly 2,000 advisers, is less than one-third the size of UBS Wealth Management Americas, and about one-tenth the size of the biggest U.S. brokerages, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

In his new role, Rabbe is in charge of building out both the Burlington and Andover offices, in addition to continuing to oversee his clients' assets.

Rabbe, a more than 27-year industry veteran, had been at UBS since 2001 and had also previously worked at Merrill Lynch, according to regulatory filings.

He was joined by former UBS adviser Tania Cadieux, who also moved to RBC in September.

RBC Wealth Management has about $227 billion in client assets under management. The firm also said earlier this week it added a team of veteran advisers from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. That team, based in Denver, managed $177 million in client assets.

With these new recruits, RBC has added at least 27 experienced advisers this year from major brokerages, including UBS Wealth Management Americas, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management and Wells Fargo Advisors. Those recruits managed more than $2 billion in client assets at their previous firms, based on moves tracked by Reuters.

(Reporting by Ashley Lau in New York; Editing by Chelsea Emery and M.D. Golan)

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Keywords: RBC WEALTH/