UBS Advisors Stay Ahead of Rivals: Q3 Earnings

October 28, 2016 at 12:18 PM
Share & Print

Swiss-based UBS (UBS) says its wealth-management operations in the Americas continue to outperform rivals as of Sept. 30.

"In the first full quarter since introducing changes to its operating model, Wealth Management Americas delivered a strong performance despite persistent macro challenges," the company said in a statement on Friday.

The UBS advisors have yearly fees and commissions of $1,120,000 and average assets per advisor of $156 million. "We continue to be the industry leader," it said, noting that is has 7,087 advisors in the U.S., Canada and Latin America.

Morgan Stanley (MS), for instance, said that its 15,856 advisors had yearly average production of $977,000 as of Sept. 30 and average assets per FA of about $132 million.

Rival Bank of America-Merrill Lynch (BAC) reported earlier in October that its reps have an average annual production level of $983,000.

"The quarter saw record pre-tax profit [of $328 million] driven by record recurring net fee income and record net interest income as well as continued growth in banking," UBS explained. "Wealth Management Americas continues to have the industry's most productive financial advisors as evidenced by records in revenue per FA and invested assets per FA."

The UBS unit had revenue of over $1.9 billion in the most-recent period. It says about $1.6 billion, or 81%, is recurring fee-based income and net interest. That's up from 79.7% a year ago.

"Recurring net fee income increased by $10 million to $1,241 million, mainly due to higher managed account fees following an increase in invested assets, as well as higher advisory fees," it explained.

Net asset flows, including interest and dividends, for the unit were $6.7 billion. Rival Morgan Stanley said its Q3 fee-based flows were $13.5 billion, while Bank of America-Merrill Lynch – which has over 15,000 reps — says it had $10.2 billion of asset flows in the same period. 

NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.

Related Stories