Hiring Spree in Wealth Management Continues

The industry seems to have an insatiable appetite for personnel in wealth management. BNY Mellon, Barclays and UBS all announced strategic hires in the past few weeks. There's quite of bit of poaching going on, so expect bidding up of comp and bonus. Smith Barney is just one, noting the need to keep salaries high for financial advisers, as Bank of America and UBS steal away top performers.

The new hires in the space-predominately senior level execs-seem to point to additional job opportunities to come on the operations and tech side of a number of banks and investment firms. BOA just hired former Morgan Stanley's chief information officer of enterprise infrastructure to serve as CTO of its global wealth and investment management arm.

Across town, BNY Mellon Wealth Management moved Douglas Schaenen and Myriam Soto up the ranks and into new managing director positions on the international wealth management side-a section of the business they are looking to grow.

Meanwhile, Barclays Wealth picked up five new investment reps at their Atlanta, Chicago, and Philly locations. And UBS Wealth Management Americas continued its dramatic hiring moves by bringing in more financial advisors at locations across the U.S. With the recent hiring of 15 new FAs, the team has doubled from a year ago. Last week, top management of the U.S. wealth management unit of UBS denied reports of its sale to Wells Fargo.

But predictions for acquisitions by other players in wealth management abound. Earlier this month, SunTrust acquired CSI Capital Management. In April, BNY Mellon announced plans to buy Talon Asset Management's wealth management biz.