JPMorgan Hires $940M Merrill Advisor for LA Team
JPMorgan Chase is recruiting a California-based wealth advisor managing about $940 million in assets to join Elevate Wealth Partners, a Los Angeles J.P. Morgan Advisors team.
Tiffany Yu, who has over 30 years of industry experience, is joining Elevate as a managing partner from Merrill Bank of America. According to SEC records, Yu has been registered with Merrill since 1998, before moving to JPMorgan at the end of last month.
According to J.P. Morgan Wealth Management Regional Director Michael Rogers, Yu’s hire builds on the firm’s presence in Los Angeles and “strengthens our ability to meet growing client demand there.” According to JPMorgan, the bank has about 4,500 employees and about 240 branches in the city.
Yu is based in Century City and will work alongside Wealth Partner Eric Gray at Elevate Wealth, which advises wealthy individuals and families on investment management, including discretionary models using investment vehicles such as equities, fixed income and alternatives.
In addition to Yu, J.P. Morgan’s recruited several other advisors with significant managed assets, including Los Angeles-based David Amar, who managed $1.1 billion and joined from William Blair, and Pourya Naeimi, an advisor in Palo Alto managing $533 million in assets who joined from Wells Fargo.
According to her biography, Yu works with individuals, multi-generational families and business leaders, offering wealth and portfolio management, preservation and tax-aware considerations. At Merrill, she spent over 10 years in the firm’s Capital Markets group on the municipal bond trading desk, specializing in fixed income markets before becoming a financial advisor.
Last week, J.P. Morgan Wealth hired another Merrill alum to oversee its Southeast region. Linda Patel was appointed Southeast Regional Director. She will be based in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., overseeing about 80 advisors in Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, Boca Raton, Miami and Atlanta.
According to JPMorgan, Patel’s hiring came as the region continued to become a “substantial base” for ultra-high-net-worth individuals, noting that Florida gained $20 billion in adjusted gross income from interstate migration between 2018 and 2023, the largest net gain of any state. The bank has 440 and 120 branches in Florida and Georgia, respectively.
JPMorgan recently reported its third-quarter earnings, showing a 14% year-over-year jump in its asset and wealth management division, driven largely by management fee growth. The firm’s assets under management hit $5.2 trillion, a 13% year-over-year increase, while expenses grew 14% to $4.4 billion, driven by higher compensation and “continued growth in private banking advisor teams.”
