Stifel Hires Longtime UBS Manager in the Southwest
Stifel Financial has picked up a UBS Wealth branch manager with 31 years in management to help it expand in Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico.
James P. Van Steenhuyse joined Stifel in Phoenix, Ariz., on Tuesday in the regional recruiting role. The St. Louis-based brokerage firm has about 25 brokers in four Arizona and one Nevada branch, he said.
Van Steenhuyse, who has been a broker since joining E.F. Hutton in 1979, moved to UBS predecessor firm PaineWebber as branch manager in Walnut Creek, Calif., in 1986 and has managed offices in Arizona since 1995, according to his former UBS webpage and his BrokerCheck history. He stepped down as the firm’s Phoenix branch manager in November.
His move comes as UBS’s U.S. broker-dealer has cut its budget for recruiting advisers, a former key goal of managers, and is offering incentive programs to retain experienced brokers and managers.
“That’s the reason I’m at Stifel,” Van Steenhuyse said. “My skill set is growing the business and that’s exactly what Stifel has done for the last 10 to 15 years.”
UBS’s force of advisers has been steadily falling over the last few years. The firm said it suffered an outflow of client assets last quarter as an above-the-norm number of brokers jumped to other firms in anticipation of the firm’s withdrawal from the Protocol for Broker Recruiting.
Spokespeople at UBS did not return requests for comment on Van Steenhuyse’s departure. Its Phoenix branch has been managed since February by Shawn Bernhard, who moved west after serving as an assistant market head in New York, according to the Arizona branch website and her BrokerCheck history.
Her move came as part of a tweaking of UBS’s branch complex structure that involved moving several longtime managers into new roles. The firm’s parent bank in February also folded its U.S. wealth business into its broader worldwide wealth unit under the joint leadership of Americas head Tom Naratil and Martin Blessing, who had run the non-U.S. wealth division.