Merrill Private Wealth Management has added a 14-person team from Morgan Stanley’s Graystone Consulting business that oversees more than $13 billion in client assets.
The team works with a national client base that includes ultra-high-net-worth families, entrepreneurs, corporate executives and retirement plans. It includes advisors Alfred Hammond, Matthew McLaughlin, Anthony Mancini, Peter J. Ciovacco, Scott Tobey and Michael Egan, as well as eight support staff members, according to a Merrill spokesperson.
The team has been with Morgan Stanley since at least 2009, according to BrokerCheck. They are departing an institutional practice overseeing about $747.7 billion in client assets, and with over 50 offices in the U.S. as of the end of 2024, according to the most recent figures on its website.
AdvisorHub first reported on the move.
The addition helps bolster an institutional practice at Merrill that lost a large team to the registered investment advisor space last year. OpenArc Corporate Advisory, which had been overseeing $129 billion, spun off from Merrill in September to the Dynasty Financial Network platform.
Merill has since sought to sue the team for launching what it termed a premeditated “corporate raid.” Most recently, a federal judge ruled against the New York-based wirehouse’s attempt to restart the lawsuit after it had been dismissed for FINRA arbitration.
Now, Merrill has claimed back some institutional expertise, with the former Graystone team joining an office led by Greg McGauley, head of Merrill Private Wealth Management, International and Institutional, and part of the Northeast region of Private Wealth, led by Nathan Marsden.
“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 in a statement.
Morgan Stanley did not respond to a request for comment about the move.
