UBS and Ameriprise add retention bonuses as recruiting turns fierce

UBS and Ameriprise are adding advisor retention bonuses for 2026-27, according to Private Wealth Daily's reporting, at a moment when Osaic president Shannon Reid describes recruiting as "very, very fierce."

Louis Diamond says paying a group to stay before it leaves differs from deferred compensation, and that other firms may follow. If they do, retention money becomes a standing cost of holding teams rather than one firm's answer to a recruiting market.

An advisor holding an offer now has a second number to price: a 2026-27 retention payment from the firm where the book sits. The recruiting package on the other side is the other half of that arithmetic. Neither program's size nor its terms appear in the coverage, so the announcements establish that the firms are paying to keep books, not what a book is worth to keep.

Reid's phrase is a price signal, not just a mood. A platform with about $740 billion in assets describing competition for advisors that way suggests the price of bringing a team across is rising for everyone bidding, including the firm trying to keep it.

Set beside each other, the retention announcements and Reid's description answer the same question from opposite ends: what a firm will pay to keep an advisor, and what it costs to hire one away.

Osaic is not shopping for scale. Reid said large-scale M&A is "not really in our plan," which points to recruiting as the channel the firm defends in public.

ICG next, a $2.3 billion New Jersey firm led by James Costabile, moved to Osaic and listed recruiting and acquisition support among its reasons after evaluating several major firms. Against Osaic's roughly $740 billion in assets, the $2.3 billion is just over 0.3% of the platform, so the win matters less for the book than for the reason given: a firm moved for help hiring advisors and buying other firms.

That is a different sale from a purchase price. Selling recruiting and acquisition support suggests a firm of that size can buy capacity to grow without selling the business to do it.

The M&A route is still running. Wealth managers announced 156 RIA deals and closed 50 in a 90-day period, according to Private Wealth Daily's coverage. Osaic is not taking that route, which sets up the comparison the next two years will test: pay for teams as they arrive and stay, or pay for firms whole.

Rockefeller Global Family Office added a Houston team that one outlet reported at $1.4 billion in client assets and another at $700 million, with different accounts of how many people moved. The same team is worth twice as much in one report as in the other, which shows how far the count can travel before it is checked.

The Houston pair is the caution for anyone buying on announced assets. A purchase price is negotiated against a book that has been counted; a liftout announcement is a claim about a book that has not moved yet.

The figures above come from Private Wealth Daily's reporting on the two retention programs, the Osaic interview, the ICG next move and the two Houston accounts.

Read together, the disclosures point one way: the money is aimed at teams and books rather than at firms. UBS and Ameriprise are paying to keep books they already hold. Osaic says large-scale M&A is not in its plan and offers recruiting and acquisition support instead. In each case the thing being priced is a group of advisors and the assets attached to it.

For an RIA principal buying advisory firms, that changes the comparison set. A seller's alternative to a purchase price is staying independent on a platform that pays for recruiting and provides acquisition support, which is what ICG next chose at $2.3 billion. A purchase price has to beat that, and the platform's check does not appear on a deal sheet.

The View: a 2026-27 retention payment is a recruiting offer written in reverse, and UBS and Ameriprise have now put a price on the books they want to keep. The budget that works will be aimed at the teams most likely to leave, not spread evenly across a payroll.