Morgan Stanley hires $1.5 billion Merrill team in California

Morgan Stanley hired the Steelman Aguirre Private Wealth Management Group, a Rancho Santa Fe, California team managing $1.5 billion at Merrill Lynch. The team joined on Nov. 3 with broker David Henesey and two support staff, according to registration records. AdvisorHub first reported the move.

For a team managing $1 billion or more, Morgan Stanley's recruiting loan balance is a public measure of what the wirehouse will put behind a hire. AdvisorHub reported that a multiyear hiring push has lifted that balance back above the 2017 high-water mark of $5 billion. A team weighing channels is comparing that balance-sheet money with what an independent or hybrid platform can fund from its own capital or a lender.

Steelman Aguirre is the latest large Merrill team to join Morgan Stanley, following a Newport Beach group managing nearly $6 billion and a $3 billion San Francisco team formed in late October, according to AdvisorHub.

Merrill has taken teams in the other direction, including a private wealth team managing $1.2 billion in Virginia in September, according to AdvisorHub. Steelman first registered with UBS Wealth Management USA in 1998 and had been with Merrill since 2008, according to BrokerCheck; Aguirre joined Merrill in 2012, according to registration records.

Bank of America has set Merrill a $135 billion fee-based flow goal, roughly double the $65 billion it gathered over the past 12 months, as Private Wealth Daily previously reported. Holding teams of Steelman Aguirre's size is part of how that target gets met.