Merrill Private Wealth Management has recruited a 14-person team from Morgan Stanley's Graystone Consulting business that oversees more than $13 billion in client assets, marking a significant institutional capture for the Bank of America unit. The team includes six named advisors and eight support staff members, and serves a national client base that includes ultra-high-net-worth families, entrepreneurs, corporate executives and retirement plans.
The advisors joining Merrill are Alfred Hammond, Matthew McLaughlin, Anthony Mancini, Peter J. Ciovacco, Scott Tobey and Michael Egan. According to regulatory filings on BrokerCheck, the team has been with Morgan Stanley since at least 2009, meaning the group brings more than fifteen years of tenure at the firm they are now leaving. Morgan Stanley did not respond to a request for comment about the departure.
They are exiting an institutional practice that oversees approximately $747.7 billion in client assets across more than 50 offices in the United States as of the end of 2024, according to figures published on the Graystone Consulting website. Graystone operates as Morgan Stanley's dedicated institutional consulting arm, focusing on corporate retirement plans, endowments, foundations and high-net-worth family clients.
The addition provides Merrill with renewed institutional expertise following a damaging loss last year. In September, OpenArc Corporate Advisory, which had been overseeing $129 billion in assets, spun off from Merrill to the Dynasty Financial Network platform, migrating to the registered investment advisor space. The defection represented one of the largest team departures to the RIA channel in recent industry history.
Merrill subsequently filed suit against the OpenArc team, alleging the launch was a premeditated corporate raid. The legal effort faltered when a federal judge ruled against the New York-based wirehouse's attempt to restart the lawsuit after it had been dismissed for FINRA arbitration. The failed litigation underscored the difficulty major wealth platforms face in retaining top-performing institutional teams amid structural shifts toward advisor independence.
The former Graystone team will now join an office led by Greg McGauley, head of Merrill Private Wealth Management, International and Institutional, and will operate as part of the Northeast region of Private Wealth, which is led by Nathan Marsden. The organizational placement suggests Merrill is positioning the group to serve as a cornerstone within its rebuilt institutional practice.
In a statement, McGauley framed the recruitment as evidence of Merrill's competitive positioning in a talent war for high-end advisory teams. "The industry's top teams are looking for a firm that can help them serve increasingly complex client needs while positioning their practices for long-term growth," McGauley said. The comment reflects broader competition among wirehouses and independent platforms to offer integrated solutions for multigenerational family offices and institutional allocators.
The move was first reported by AdvisorHub. It arrives at a moment when large wealth management teams are weighing the trade-offs between wirehouse infrastructure and the autonomy of the RIA model. For ultra-high-net-worth families and institutional clients, advisor continuity and platform stability remain central concerns as billion-dollar practices shift allegiances across the industry landscape.