Another Day, Another J.P. Morgan Private Bank Team Joins UBS

By Jake Martin

UBS Wealth Management USA has hired away another group of J.P. Morgan private bankers, this time a six-person team managing $10.5 billion in client assets in San Francisco, according to a Tuesday announcement.The team, led by John “JT” Davenport, Angela Colombani and Sean Livingston, joined the wirehouse’s private wealth management division on Friday, according to registration records. The move added to a busy day of holiday weekend moves. The trio had been credited with generating around $40 million in annual revenue, according to one source who claimed familiarity with their practice.

The hire marks at least the eighth team to join UBS from J.P. Morgan Private Bank since October and underscores the wirehouse’s continued effort to bolster its brokerage force with salaried bankers who typically have a Rolodex of ultra-wealthy bank customers.

The wirehouse last month recruited a $20 million-producing team of J.P. Morgan private bankers in Indianapolis who are expected to join after garden leaves of 60 to 90 days depending on their corporate titles. A source at the bank who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the garden leave policies are not enforced in California given its more employee-friendly labor laws.

A UBS spokeswoman declined to comment beyond the firm’s announcement. A J.P. Morgan spokeswoman declined to comment on the departure or whether the team was subject to garden leave.

Davenport and Colombani had served as head of the private bank’s Northern California technology and healthcare practices, respectively, advising executives in each sector with pre-transaction planning, equity compensation and investment strategies. They did not respond to requests for comment sent through social media.

The team also includes associates Jordan Sayer, Chris Carothers and Tyler Baker-Williams.

Davenport, who registered with J.P. Morgan Securities in 2010, according to his BrokerCheck, had served as managing director at the private bank. He began his brokerage career in 2001 with Goldman Sachs, moved to Lehman Brothers in 2004 and rejoined Goldman in 2005 before jumping to the private bank, the database said.

Colombani, who joined J.P. Morgan in 2000, according to the UBS announcement and her LinkedIn profile, had been a managing director and global investment specialist. She did not register with J.P. Morgan Securities until 2007, according to her BrokerCheck, which also shows she was registered for stints with Merrill Lynch and S.F. Sentry Securities in 1999 and 2000.

Livingston had worked at fixed income investment manager PIMCO in Newport Beach, Calif., London and Munich before joining J.P. Morgan Securities in 2009, according to the UBS announcement and his BrokerCheck. He had served as an executive director at the private bank and led its private equity/venture capital team in Northern California, according to the announcement.

“Their expertise serving clients in the technology and healthcare space will be a great addition to the firm and we look forward to partnering with them to grow their business here at UBS,” Todd Locicero, West Coast market head at UBS Private Wealth Management, said in a prepared statement.

At least nine teams overall have left J.P. Morgan Private Bank since October 2020, when a $6 billion-asset team joined UBS in Atlanta. Except one that joined Morgan Stanley in Salt Lake City, all the other eight J.P. Morgan Private Bank defecting teams have gone to UBS.

Neither J.P. Morgan Private Bank nor UBS are signatories to the Protocol for Broker Recruiting, the industry truce that allows brokers to leave with customer contact information, and recruiters have said private bankers have historically had low client transfer rates given restrictive garden leaves and close bank ties.

UBS, which has also hired bankers from Wells Fargo and Bank of America, has hired aggressively from the channel since reviving its recruiting efforts over the past 18 months. The wirehouse’s headcount stabilized around 6,000 in the second quarter after steadily declining from over 8,000 a decade ago, although executives have said they’re focused on higher-producing advisors rather than bumping up overall headcount.

Advisor Moves, News

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