Will First Republic Advisors Flee to Bigger Firms?

What You Need to Know

First Republic advisors are getting calls from rivals as SVB’s failure shakes their firm, a lawyer says.
Any deals to bring new advisors into First Republic are now likely on hold.
It’s too soon to tell what the overall impact on advisor recruiting will be, as switching firms can be a long process.

Wirehouses and RIA firms could be among the key beneficiaries as the troubles affecting First Republic Bank and Silicon Valley Bank make the biggest firms look more appealing, at least in the near term, advisor recruiting experts told ThinkAdvisor on Monday.

“The RIAs and the wirehouses are already reaching out to the wealth advisors at First Republic and also at SVB” to recruit them, said Patrick J. Burns, managing attorney of a law office in Beverly Hills, California, that specializes in securities and investment advisors.

First Republic’s troubles stem from concerns about the financial health of regional banks, especially those doing business with technology companies in the San Francisco Bay Area, in light of the collapse on Friday of Silicon Valley Bank. Investors have fled First Republic’s stock, which was trading down 62% at $30.89 as of 2 p.m. Monday.

For advisory firms, being the center of negative news or “even rumored to be at risk” is enough to “freeze any in-process recruiting for any advisor,” said compensation consultant Andy Tasnady, managing partner of Tasnady Associates.

Also, “clients would be hard to convince to follow” their advisor if they move to a risky firm, he told ThinkAdvisor in an email.

Moving clients to a firm “in the news as a risk will be extremely difficult until the ‘all clear’ sign [is] given,” he added. “Even then, brand damage may dampen client transfer as well as new client sales.”

Thus far in 2023, First Republic Private Wealth Management has recruited four teams with a total of 31 individuals from Morgan Stanley, Merrill and BNY Mellon. Its wealth unit worked with assets of $271 billion as of Dec. 31. The unit’s fees last year were $877 million, representing 15% of the bank’s overall revenue for 2022.

The “flight to safety for clients and advisors will benefit” firms with the largest and safest reputations, “at least in the short run,” until the worries around smaller firms have faded, Tasnady explained. He pointed to the four wirehouses in particular — Morgan Stanley, Bank of America-Merrill, UBS and Wells Fargo — as potential beneficiaries.