UBS Shutters Training Program for Financial Plan Developers
UBS Wealth Management USA is ending a program that trained newcomers in creating financial plans as a prelude to joining teams and ultimately becoming advisors, and also has tightened the requirements for other “next-gen” development programs.
In a memo sent in the past few days to the firm’s more than 6,000 brokers and their associates titled “preparing our next-generation FAs,” training head Patrick Corry wrote that the firm has stopped hiring Wealth Planning Associates “effective immediately.” The WPA program was a two-year “curriculum” to prepare newcomers to develop what UBS calls Financial Goals Analyses for customers and prospects, plans aimed at locking them into long-term advisory account relationships.
“They train kids in planning, and seat them in a branch in hopes that a team would want to take them up,” said one veteran broker, who said the trainees effectively prodded some teams that were lax in converting customers from traditional commission accounts to advisory fee-based accounts.
The WPA program will be replaced in the coming months as “we increase our focus on Advisory conversion,” the memo said without providing details. The old program aimed to have its graduates qualify as certified financial planning certificants and move on to become financial advisor associates, working on a team as part of a three-year Wealth Manager Development Program.
Curtailing the training program appeared counter-intuitive to some advisers, who said it appears to coincide with other cost-cutting efforts, such as last week’s elimination of UBS Wealth Management USA’s practice management group that provided sales and team development advice to veteran advisers.
A UBS spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the decision or the number of planning associates who have graduated into becoming full-time advisors. Corry, who wrote that trainees “are essential to delivering on our UBS growth strategy” by “supporting and honing our top talent,” also did not respond to a request to clarify his memo.
The final WPA class will convene next month, Corry wrote in the memo, which said that existing WPAs will not be affected.
The firm will continue its three-year Wealth Manager Development Program that WPAs aspired to join. “FA associates [in WMDP] hone their skills as they embark on a role as a producing member of an FA’s team,” Corry wrote, but he noted in boldface that ideal candidates for the core training program should “have a minimum five years’ work experience.”
Training programs throughout Wall Street have notoriously high failure rates, and the work experience preference could indicate that UBS wants more serious candidates for the program.
The memo said that UBS also has tightened qualifications for its “Inter-Generational Advisor Program,” which allows advisors to “bring their sons and daughters into their practice.” The program this year is open only to advisors who are members of the firm’s “recognition clubs” for top producers, the memo said.
In April, UBS cut its payout level for trainee advisors to 35% from a lucrative 45% grid-rate that had rivaled what high-end veteran producers could receive.
UBS=U Be Stupid to keep working there- soon it will be as Merrill just did- lower payout and 3% cut.
A lot of factual inaccuracies in this one
Unless the market takes off and reaches new highs, revenues are not going to automatically rise. If the firm is determined to increase profit margins, does anyone think that UBS is not going to cut compensation to its experienced advisors like they did for the trainees? Really, I’d like to hear thoughts from anyone who is working there now that does not think that is going to happen.
UBS FAs and their clients are far more mobil than those at other places who lowered grid. Managers at all levels know this including those in the dimly lit towers of Weehawken. So I don’t think grid will be lowered, if they do people will simply vote with their feet.
I hope you are right. How do you think they will get to 20%+ margins? They have cut staff, moved operations to India and never did invest in infrastructure including IT. They are a cyber security nightmare waiting to be hacked. Most of the post on these boards are from PaineWebber brokers who are glued to their chairs. Maybe you are not. Did you sign the last deferred comp and bonus agreement? If you did I guess you don’t mind having a one year waiting period before you can contact your clients? Good luck but I’ll bet on grid cuts.
I can’t argue with anything you have said in this post and prior posts. You might have a few of the PWJ agasint you, but you speak the truth. The firm is now…placing unqualified candidates in manager positions. These individuals are not capable of increasing revenue in the branch, or helping advisors grow their business. Most of them can’t even read a simple P&L to ensure their costs aren’t out of control or identifying expenses hitting the wrong location….UBS has no culture, the survey that originally came out was promised to advance change, it’s become a “mandatory” survey so everyone goes in and checks off how great the firm is so their market managers feel good. In reality, the culture at the firm is at an all time low, I have never seen it this bad, and the local management and market heads are worthless. Practically all of them view these positions as the end of a marathon and kick up their feet and collect their check.
While advisors can try to bring their kids into the business to potentially inherit their clientele, that plan is not guaranteed. It is not uncommon to see the kids either fail to pass their licensing exams or decide that they just don’t like the business, even if the opportunity to inherit mom or dad’s book is dangled. To see that opportunity being restricted like it apparently is now at UBS is disheartening. Other firms could follow suit too, which for those hoping to create an in-family transfer of their business, should make going independent hearken more loudly.
How is that being changed?
You talking out of your Backaide again?
Of course it should, Ron.
Of course it should………..
My god. We get it. You’re a headhunter.
Please go on vacation. Jast once I would like to read a story on here without you talking your book….
I am at UBS and it is awful. I am so desperate that I may even call Ron, but I don’t want to work at Wells.
To All- I am Mr. Wonderful, I know this biz backwards and forwards, call me and I might get you an interview @ WFC. No promises, again I’m great!
FYI- Ascendant and Ron are the same person.
Not unless he had a sex change.
How else do you pay for a looming $4 Billion fine assessed for tax evasion in France? Not to mention more settlements in the now infamous Puerto Rico bond debacle . The advisors hidden and shackled by this desperate non protocol hot mess of a firm are sitting ducks now for a grid cut. And with the worst field “leadership “ in the industry , good luck holding out for pushback when Ermotti asks for his $250mm budget cut. Oh …and there are no buyers out there for this place so don’t expect MS or Wells or Merrill to come riding in on white horses. So for the geniuses that rejected any notion of getting out while the getting was still good , live with the consequences. This place is an absolute disaster.
The WPA program was flawed since the beginning. Being able to create a financial plan for a client has almost no correlation to being able to bring new clients in when these planners become FAs.
The program has brought in many very talented young people that have transitioned into being very productive for teams. As an FA, it was a great source for adding quality people to a true planning team. I know first hand.
This is not true at all. You may one someone in your branch or market that did well, but for the most part, these individuals leave the program with nowhere to land. The few that did land are already off the team because it didn’t work.
After 20 years at PWJ/UBS I left for RJ eight years ago. Best thing I have done in my career. Higher payout, an actual culture, pleasant coworkers, and management leaves you the hell alone. No diktats from above telling you how you’re supposed to do business. In eight years there has been ONLY ONE downward adjustment to payout. No drama and no headline risk.
I’ve been at UBS for 10 years after a similar stint at another wirehouse and have had nothing but a great experience at the firm. My partner and I have almost quadrupled our biz and been supported all along by local and senior management. It is what you make of it.
FYI- peggy g, Rod Ebbe and Phil Pepe are the same idiot.