Financial Advisor IQ – Merrill Lynch Duo Exits to Help Snowden Expand

April 2017

By Alex Padalka – April 27, 2017
A duo of Merrill Lynch financial advisors managing $150 million have jumped ship to Snowden Lane Partners, according to a press release.
The recruitment of Larry Barocas and Debbie Ury, who operate as the Strategic Management Group in San Antonio, Texas, will mark Snowden Lane’s entry into the southwest U.S. market and its ninth U.S. location overall, according to the press release. Barocas, who practiced law prior to starting his career as a financial advisor in 1998, has been with Merrill since 2009, Snowden Lane says. Ury has been with the wirehouse since 1981, meanwhile, according to the press release.
Snowden Lane, the advisor-owned wealth management firm founded in 2011, has been growing its reach by recruiting advisors from rivals including Merrill, Morgan Stanley, UBS and JPMorgan, Snowden Lane says in the press release. In January the firm scooped up a Wells Fargo Advisors team managing $125 million, as reported previously.
Meanwhile, there’s been a lot of back-and-forth broker moves at Merrill in recent months. Last week, a team of advisors managing $400 million decamped for Raymond James, which had also picked up three Merrill teams overseeing close to $825 million in March. In February, three advisors collectively managing $602 million at Merrill left for Morgan Stanley. But in March and April Merrill added six Morgan Stanley brokers collectively overseeing $1.3 billion.