RBC Wealth Management has boosted its Albuquerque, New Mexico office with the recruitment of two large high net worth teams - which combined have $550 million in assets under management - from Smith Barney.

The Cates Team is comprised of William Cates, senior vice president – financial consultant; Christopher Cates and Brad Cates, both first vice president – financial consultants; Joseph Romero, senior financial associate; Victoria Zimmerman, investment associate, and Christina Lauderdale, registered client associate.

The Crosby-Kattenhorn Team is made up of David Crosby, senior vice president – financial consultant; Tylen Kattenhorn, first vice president – financial consultant; Philip Mayo, associate vice president – financial consultant; Joseph Romero, senior financial associate; Jessica Williams, registered client associate, and Collete Ulivarri, client associate.

Both teams now report to Mike Anderson, Albuquerque branch director.

Since the start of its current fiscal year, which commenced 1 November 2008, RBC Wealth Management has recruited more than 600 people globally, with a significant proportion of these hires occurring in the US.

This US hiring spree has seen the firm recruit 198 advisors since November, while 157 advisors were hired for the whole of the previous year. RBC Wealth Management has tapped a number of its rivals in the US, and in addition to Smith Barney, UBS, Wachovia Securities (now Wells Fargo Advisors), and Merrill Lynch have all experienced defections to RBC in 2009.

RBC Wealth Management has approximately $220 billion in global assets under management and $450 billion in global assets under administration. Internationally, the firm operates across 35 offices in the UK and Ireland, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, the Caribbean, Latin America and North America.