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Morgan Stanley Smith Barney vet bolts for UBS; $100M Wells team jets

Christopher Miller, a former executive vice president and Southwest regional director at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney in Houston, has moved on to UBS Financial Services Inc. and joined its Houston office as complex director.

UBS Wealth Management: Christopher Miller, a former executive vice president and Southwest regional director at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney in Houston, has moved on to UBS Financial Services Inc. and joined its Houston office as complex director.

Mr. Miller will manage five branches in the Texas Gulf Coast area, said UBS spokeswoman Allison Chin-Leong.

The position is a new post at the firm, she said. “We had a reorganization a couple of months ago, where we moved to a complex structure where a [single] manager would manage a number of associate branches,” Ms. Chin-Leong said.

Mr. Miller joined the firm Sept. 16, she said.

Mr. Miller said a personal decision led to the move.

“I had to decide in order to stay in Texas,” he said. “I wanted to remain in Texas. And the other job was changing through the realignment.”

“The vision I have is to be the complex of choice within the firm of choice for both financial advisers and clients,” Mr. Miller said. “The industry as a whole has a number of challenges facing it and paramount to that is the need to address client needs. Clients have gone through a lot of turmoil through the past few years, and we want to make sure we are communicating appropriately with clients.”

An MSSB spokeswoman declined to comment about a replacement for Mr. Miller.

He worked for Smith Barney for almost 25 years, having joined Citigroup Global Markets Inc. in Fort Lauderdale in 1984. Morgan Stanley and Smith Barney merged this year.

Capital Investment Cos.
A team of three advisers who managed $100 million at Wells Fargo Advisors LLC has joined Capital Investment Cos., a Raleigh, N.C.-based financial services and brokerage firm.

The advisers, who co-founded Renaissance Financial Managers in Hickory, N.C., are John Watts III, Elizabeth Rogers and Ryan Mumy, who worked together as a group for 10 years at A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc. before it was acquired by Wachovia Corp. two years ago. Mr. Watts opened an A.G. Edwards office some 20 years ago, according to co-founder Mr. Mumy.

“We realized that A.G. Edwards was not coming back,” Mr. Mumy said. “We gave it a couple of years. We wanted to find a firm that was as close as possible to the way that A. G. Edwards conducted their business.”

Capital Investment fit that need from a cultural perspective, he said. “They have a team approach,” Mr. Mumy said. “Everybody goes out of their way to help you. It has a family feel. The client comes first. And that’s not just people talking about it, there is followthrough.”

Wachovia Corp. acquired A.G. Edwards in 2007. In 2008, Wachovia was acquired by Wells Fargo & Co.

A spokeswoman for Wells Fargo was not immediately available for comment.