UBS Loses $3.5B Team; Hires $1.2B Glenmede Advisor

UBS lost a team that managed about $3.5 billion in client assets to a newly formed advisory firm, Beacon Coast Advisors, and recruited Adam Conish from Glenmede, where he oversaw roughly $1.2 billion in institutional assets.

Beacon Coast Advisors, registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission and based in San Francisco, was founded by Michael Evans and David Jasper. Both are managing partners and previously worked at Goldman Sachs before joining UBS in the early 2000s. The firm also includes partner Eddie Huang, Vice President of Family Office Services Katherine Piersanti and associate Marcus Ferreira. Beacon Coast said it will focus on helping founders, executives and employees manage proceeds from company sales and other liquidity events. Evans wrote in a statement that the firm will help clients address decisions that follow a liquidity event, and added that its work aims to provide clarity and structure.

Conish joined UBS’s Mid-Atlantic Market in Philadelphia. He had been director of endowment and foundation management at Glenmede and began his career there in 2007. At UBS he will report to Patricia Cashin, senior market director for the greater Philadelphia area, and work under Market Executive Brendan Graham. Cashin described Conish as “an extremely talented financial advisor with decades of experience and a unique focus on advising foundations, endowments and non-profit organizations.”

UBS revised compensation policies late in 2024, replacing a system that let advisory team members receive a share of total team revenue with payouts tied to revenue produced by the highest-producing team member. The bank later softened some elements of the changes but kept the core policy in place. UBS declined to comment on the departures.

Data show UBS has lost 130 advisors since the start of the year. The bank’s advisor headcount in the Americas fell to 5,722 in the first quarter, down slightly from the prior quarter and roughly 3% below the same period a year earlier.

Recruiters reported that UBS has offered transition deals that can exceed 500% of an advisor’s prior-year revenue to attract teams and individuals. Results have been mixed: some advisors moved to UBS, while others left to form independent registered investment advisers. In November, a group managing about $6 billion left UBS to form 71 West Capital Partners.

Ron Edde, founder of Millennium Career Advisors, noted that institutional assets can be slower to transfer when advisors change firms because boards that oversee endowments and foundations meet infrequently. He added, “If they don’t have anything scheduled for next quarter, you could sit there waiting for a while to get something considered.”

UBS Chief Executive Sergio Ermotti has said acquisitions remain an option for the bank’s U.S. growth strategy as it manages retention and recruiting in its wealth unit.