A wirehouse is fighting rumors that it could be on the block.

John Aidan Byrne of the New York Post reports that, per UBS alumnus Alois Pirker, the multinational Swiss bank has "no interest in brokerage" and that a sale of UBS Wealth Management Americas "still might happen." Yet a spokesman for UBS tries to shut down the rumor.

"Our wealth management franchise is at the core of our strategy and we are uniquely positioned in the US to succeed," the spokesman tells both the Post and InvestmentNews.

That spokesman tells InvestmentNews that UBS WMA has "the most productive adviser force in the industry in the largest market in the world." At the end of Q1 2016, UBS WMA had 7,145 FAs working with $1.05 trillion in assets and producing annualized revenue of $1.06 million each. (The other three wirehouses each have about twice that many FAs.) So UBS' average FA works with about $147 million in assets and brings in about 72 basis points in revenue from those assets.

An "industry headhunter", Danny Sarch, tells the Post that "a sale of UBS WMA would be illogical" and that the wirehouse is "earning money." 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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