Swiss bank's U.S. retail brokerage adds advisors from its wirehouse rivals. UBS pulled in 132 brokers from rival firms in the last half of November, according to media reports. The new recruits managed a total of $14 billion at their old firms, which comes to $106 million in assets under management for each broker -- ahead of the wirehouse-rep average of $70 million.

This flurry of hiring has given rise to the idea -- in some quarters anyway -- that UBS' U.S. brokerage is emerging from the turmoil on Wall Street as a destination of choice for itchy-footed brokers.

Any port in a storm

Reps view UBS "as one of the places to be right now," headhunter Danny Sarch of White Plains, N.Y.-based Leitner Sarch Consultants, told Dow Jones. And according to Darin Manis of Colorado Springs, Colo.-based recruiting firm RJ & Makay, UBS is winning recruits because it's offering better payouts than its rivals.

But UBS disagrees, telling Dow Jones that its deals with brokers conform to "well established and well known industry norms," and that brokers are choosing UBS "despite offers from their current firms or rival firms that match our compensation packages."

Among UBS' new hires is the Menlo Park, Calif.-based team of Barry Elkins, Pamela Davies, Ellen Jones, and Andrew Le, which managed $774 million at Morgan Stanley, and, in New York, Tom Cavada and Greg Mowrer, who managed $226 million and $160 million (respectively) at Smith Barney. -FWR

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