St. Louis-based Stifel, Nicolaus & Company says it entered a deal with UBS Financial Services to acquire up to 55 branches and 320 financial advisors from the UBS Wealth Management Americas branch network.
The 55 offices are found in 24 states and include 320 FAs with some $15 billion in assets under management. In 2008, these branches generated roughly revenues of $116 million, including about $100 million in compensable FA revenue.
At present, Stifel Nicolas has 1,368 advisors, including some independent contractors in 203 offices nationwide. Thus, on a pro-forma basis, the broker-dealer could have close to 1,700 advisors, which makes it bigger than Oppenheimer (with 1,400) but smaller than RBC Dain Rauscher (with 2,150) – according to industry data made public by Stifel.
UBS had some 8,200 advisors before this deal was announced on March 23.
"The addition of these UBS branches represents a unique strategic fit," says Stifel Chairman and CEO Ronald J. Kruszewski,. "The addition of this talented group of professionals furthers our efforts to meet our goal of expanding across the country and further build upon Stifel's recent growth achieved through our successful acquisitions and integrations of the Legg Mason Capital Markets Group in 2005, Ryan Beck in 2007 and Butler Wick last year."
The transaction is structured as an asset purchase for cash at a premium over certain balance sheet items, subject to adjustment. The payments to UBS include:
