Advisor duo boomerangs to Morgan Stanley after 15 years at UBS

Roughly 15 years after leaving to join UBS, two longtime advisors have returned to Morgan Stanley.

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Tom Cleary and Robert Whittington rejoined Morgan Stanley in January after working at UBS since 2009. They now operate within the Southeast Wealth Management Group at Morgan Stanley, based in Orlando, Florida.

Both Cleary and Whittington were previously with Morgan Stanley and Dean Witter, a brokerage firm Morgan Stanley merged with in 1997. Cleary started at Dean Witter in 1987 and Whittington in 1995, according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s BrokerCheck database.

Both Morgan Stanley and UBS declined to provide asset under management totals for Cleary and Whittington or to comment for this article. Cleary also declined to comment.

READ MORE: After 12 years at UBS, $450M team returns to Morgan Stanley

Why wirehouse advisors sometimes choose the familiar over independence

Ron Edde, an industry recruiter and the founder of Millennium Career Advisors, said it’s somewhat surprising when advisors leave one wirehouse, like UBS, merely to join another wirehouse, like Morgan Stanley. It’s doubly surprising when they return to a firm they had previously decided to leave.

“For a lot of people, it’s just a return to the status quo,” said Edde, who did not help Cleary and Whittington move. “People tend to follow what’s familiar. There are people who buy the same brand of car over and over again, even if it’s not the best car for the money.”

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Wirehouses like UBS and Morgan Stanley have faced strong competition in recent decades from independent broker-dealers and other firms that give advisors more leeway to run their practices as they see fit. These firms often let advisors keep a large percentage of the revenue they generate in return for paying more day-to-day business costs.

“I think a lot of advisors don’t understand the independent space,” Edde said. “There are a lot of misconceptions. A lot of people think it’s a lot more difficult for you. But most of the independent firms will do everything for you that wirehouses do.”

UBS has struggled with advisor losses since announcing in 2024 that it was making changes to its compensation system in a bid to boost the profit margin of its U.S. wealth management business. In an earnings call on Feb. 4, UBS reported it ended last year with 5,772 advisors in its Americas unit, which includes Latin America and Canada. That headcount was largely unchanged from the previous quarter but down 3.3% year over year.

Its recent departures include:

The Couch Group, a three-person team that also returned to Morgan Stanley after previously leaving it for UBS. The group had managed roughly $450 million for UBS in Watertown, New York.A three-person team managing roughly $480 million that joined Wells Fargo in northern Georgia. John Cunningham and his daughter, Lee Ann Cunningham, who together joined Morgan Stanley. They had previously managed $700 million for UBS in Louisville, Kentucky.