Steward Lands Biggest Breakaway Team to Date from UBS
Steward Partners, a Stamford, Conn.-based registered investment advisor with more than 175 advisory teams and about $50 billion in assets, has added a former UBS team that had been managing $2.4 billion to its Legacy Channel.
The six-advisor and 11-person team of Zelniker Dorfman Private Wealth is Steward’s largest wirehouse breakaway team by advisors since it left Raymond James’ brokerage services in 2022 and began building an RIA for other breakaways. The team, which is Steward’s second-largest breakaway by assets, will join Steward as W-2 employees with offices in Florida and New York, working as Zelniker Dorfman Private Wealth at Steward Partners.
“The best teams are making continuity decisions,” said Scott Danner, chief growth officer and head of the legacy division for Steward. “A lot of teams like this one are doing a ton of business, have a lot of productivity, but see the value of connecting with us and having the infrastructure while keeping independence. We are unique in the M&A world because we can provide both.”
The firm is led by partners Scott Zelniker and Peter Dorfman and is focused on business owners managing liquidity events, multi-generational families, professional athletes and entertainers, women in wealth, gaming and content creation and other groups.
“We have had Steward Partners on our radar for nearly a decade, and what appealed to us then has only grown stronger,” Dorfman, partner and wealth manager at the firm, said in a statement.
Zelniker Dorfman will custody with Raymond James, which is one option Steward offers along with Schwab, Fidelity, Pershing and Goldman Sachs.
Danner said the UBS team had been watching Steward grow and felt the timing was right to join them.
“The size of their squad really is something that we’re very equipped to handle,” Danner said. “When developers want to develop a new community, they start with no infrastructure. … Steward has built the infrastructure, and is now building the neighborhood.”
The firm’s legacy channel is “for firms who are looking to grow,” Danner said, but also serves as a pipeline for advisors to transfer clients at retirement while the firms go on.
“People are seeing a lot of value in the RIA space because of our infrastructure from HR to compliance to marketing,” Danner said. “We see a lot more conversations happening this year.”
Last year, a former Merrill Lynch team made waves as one of the largest wirehouse breakaways on record, forming OpenArc Corporate Advisory with Dynasty Financial Partners. The firm and Dynasty are still in a legal dispute with Merrill about the nature of its departure.