Top Wealth Management Firms

By Mark Kolakowski  Updated on September 2, 2022

When you're in the process of selecting the best wealth management firm to work for, some factors to narrow the field is to focus on the top firms in to look at profitability, wealth manager head count and outlook for the wealth management business shared by the management.

What Is a Wealth Management Firm?

Wealth management firms offer a wide range of financial and investment advisory services, typically, to high networth clients. Although the definition of the wealth market is a highly elastic one and it can vary by firm, a generally accepted variant includes clients with at least $1 million in financial assets, but many firms set the bar lower.

Here's a look at some of the big named wealth management firm, in no particular order.

UBS

In 2021, UBS generated roughly $4.8 billion in pre-tax profit from wealth management activities, representing a little over 50% of $9.48 billion pre-tax profit for the firm as a whole.1

While UBS is known for its aggressive cost and headcount-cutting, at the end of 2021, UBS had more than 9,300 financial and wealth advisors.2

Note:  In January 2022, UBS agreed to acquire digital wealth management company Wealthfront in a push to attract Gen Z and millennial wealth management client. The deal will add more than 470,000 clients with over $27 billion in assets to UBS.3

Bank of America

Many people know Bank of America as their friendly neighborhood Bank offering senior citizens free checking.  Actually, Bank of America is the parent company of Merrill Lynch, and it also includes its Bank of America Private Wealth Management divisions in its segment reporting for Global Wealth and Investment Management.

In 2021, the net income for Bank of America's global wealth management business, clocked nearly $4.33 billion. At the end of 2021, the company had a huge roster of more than 18,800 wealth advisors.4

Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo offers diverse wealth management services. For 2021, Wells Fargo's wealth and investment management business segment reported net income of over $2 billion, which represents around 9% of the the firm's total $21.5 billion net income for the year.5

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