$1.3B UBS Team Departs for Wells Fargo’s FiNet
A UBS team that had been managing $1.3 billion in assets has left for Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network in yet another poaching win away from the Swiss-based bank’s U.S. wealth division since it restructured its compensation plan in 2025.
The seven-person Cullman/Holt Group based in Upper Arlington, Ohio, will join FiNet-affiliated Ascend Advisory Group in Dublin, Ohio, according to a Wells Fargo spokesperson. The team will continue to be led by Managing Director Jeff Cullman and Senior Vice President W. Bruce Holt, and includes another advisor and four client associates.
“The move of a team of this size and quality is a reflection of the exceptional platform Tony Reilly and Ascend have created and the access to capabilities and solutions available through the FiNet platform,” FiNet President John Tyers said in a statement.
Reilly is the founder and CEO of Ascend, which has more than $2.5 billion in assets under management, according to its website.
According to a recent advisor moves report by consultancy Winthrop & Co., San Francisco-based Wells Fargo has been the largest beneficiary of departing UBS teams, bringing on 11 groups in 2025.
This April, FiNet added former UBS advisors Touchstone Wealth Partners, a Toledo, Ohio-based firm overseeing $2.1 billion in AUM, following a March addition of $1.7 billion in AUM from Snow Pine Private Wealth in Wayzata, Minn.
UBS has seen advisor attrition in North America since making moves such as lowering payout rates for some advisors and shifting incentives to bring on wealthier clients.
However, the firm has been forecasting a slowdown in that bleeding as it ramps up recruiting and implements a retire-in-place program to retain advisors. According to Winthrop’s report, that retention program “pays transitioning advisors a maximum incentive of 300% of trailing-12 production over the sunset period, a figure that quietly competes with external recruiting packages for the retiring cohort.”
The analysts also said that UBS is testing the “trough” for its advisor losses in 2026, noting that second-quarter results backed that up with strong net new assets, but not yet for advisor headcount.
