UBS Wealth Management USA, which has been in search of to bolster its recruiting of top-end producers, on Friday nabbed a Merrill Lynch advisor who had generated $8.6 million in annual income in Jonesboro, Arkansas, a spokesperson confirmed.
Joseph “Clay” Young IV, a three-decade business veteran, had managed $956 million in belongings at Merrill, in line with an business rating cited by the spokesperson. He joined UBS’s South Market led by Regional Director Julie Fox on Friday.
Young will work from an UBS workplace in Memphis, Tennessee, till it opens an workplace in Jonesboro later this yr.
Neither Young nor a spokesperson for Merrill responded to requests for remark.
The high-profile rent comes as UBS is trying to regain momentum after a interval of elevated advisor attrition tied in half to compensation adjustments that took impact final yr.
Over the previous two weeks, UBS has rolled out an aggressive recruiting package deal that provides 550% of trailing-12 month income for groups that generated no less than $7 million in annual income. While strikes can sometimes take no less than six months to plan and execute, Young would seem to have met the brink for the record-setting supply.
The UBS spokesperson declined to touch upon whether or not Young had certified for or accepted the supply.
Young started his profession with Wells Fargo’s A.G. Edwards predecessor in 1996 and labored at Stephens Inc. earlier than becoming a member of Merrill in 2015.
Young additionally incorporates social media into his advertising and marketing and is energetic on Instagram the place he identifies himself as a Merrill managing director and has greater than 11,400 followers. Recent posts embrace Young posing with U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Danny McBride, star of ‘Eastbound & Down’ and ‘Righteous Gemstones.’
UBS has skilled an exodus of advisors over the previous yr following adjustments to its compensation for 2025. UBS purchasers withdrew a web $14.1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025 and no less than 54 groups with virtually $52 billion left final yr.
Last month, it added longtime Morgan Stanley govt Ben Firestein to be head of Field Leader Development and National Recruiting and Retention, and it elevated Lisa Golia to a newly created function instantly overseeing the agency’s U.S. advisor power.
UBS additionally final week won approval for a U.S. financial institution constitution.
