Merrill Hired a Private Banker Managing $2.2 Billion at J.P. Morgan in San Francisco

By Intersection Advisory · Advisor Moves

Published: April 8, 2026

Category: Advisor Moves

Peter C. Laidlaw registered with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith in San Francisco on April 6, 2026, after seven years at J.P. Morgan Securities. AdvisorHub reported on April 8 that he had been managing $2.2 billion at JPMorgan Chase and that a source put his annual revenue at $4.1 million. A Merrill spokesperson confirmed the hire and said Laidlaw joined the private wealth unit reporting to Tracy Murphy, regional managing director for the Private Wealth West market. Neither Laidlaw nor a JPMorgan spokesperson responded to AdvisorHub. Financial Planning, a day later, called him a former managing director and private wealth manager at J.P. Morgan Private Bank and used the same two figures: $2.2 billion previously managed, and roughly $4.1 million of annual revenue.

The asset figure and the revenue figure are not the same kind of number. AdvisorHub stated the $2.2 billion as the book he was managing at J.P. Morgan. The $4.1 million is attributed to a source, not to the Merrill spokesperson. His current Merrill profile, at 555 California Street, 18th floor, describes him as a managing director and private wealth manager responsible for investment and wealth planning and for Bank of America lending, serving a select group of ultra-high-net-worth clients that the profile lists as technology founders and early employees, venture-capital and hedge-fund general partners, and C-suite executives. That is how the Merrill page defines the seat. It is not an audited split of the $2.2 billion.

What is on the registration record?

BrokerCheck shows a San Francisco address at every stop. Financial Planning’s line that his career has been in San Francisco matches the file.

| Firm on BrokerCheck | Dates | City |

| --- | --- | --- |

| UBS Financial Services (CRD 6091041) | November 20, 2012–October 8, 2013 | San Francisco |

| Jefferies LLC | September 30, 2013–September 4, 2015 | San Francisco |

| Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC | September 28, 2015–March 26, 2019 | San Francisco |

| J.P. Morgan Securities LLC | April 5, 2019–April 5, 2026 | San Francisco |

| Merrill Lynch | April 6, 2026– | San Francisco, ZIP 94104 |

The Merrill biography says he was an executive director at J.P. Morgan Private Bank in San Francisco for seven years. The broker registration runs from April 5, 2019, to April 5, 2026, which is seven years to the day. His investment-adviser registration at J.P. Morgan begins later, on September 29, 2023. The biography also says he was a private wealth advisor at Goldman Sachs and held similar roles at other firms, that he has over 15 years advising high-net-worth families, with depth in pre-liquidity planning, asset allocation, and multigenerational transfer, and that he holds an A.B. from Dartmouth College and a J.D. from Santa Clara University School of Law, where he was a senior editor of the Law Review and received a certificate in High Tech Law. Those education and practice-focus lines are his Merrill profile, not findings from a client file.

AdvisorHub’s BrokerCheck sketch — UBS in 2012, then Jefferies, then Goldman Sachs, then J.P. Morgan in 2019 — matches the dates above. The UBS stop is a first registration, ended in 2013. It is not the move this story is about.

Why is a private banker’s asset number a different object?

AdvisorHub said wirehouses sometimes hire private bankers even though some customers are more closely tied to the bank and harder to transfer. It pointed to a February 2024 precedent: Merrill hired another JPMorgan banker in Los Angeles who managed around $9 billion. That “around $9 billion” is the earlier hire, not Laidlaw. For this hire, the sourced asset figure is $2.2 billion and the sourced production figure is $4.1 million. Dividing those two reported numbers produces about 19 basis points. The ratio is a calculation, not a fee schedule, and it is low enough to be consistent with a private-banking book that includes balances a wirehouse producer would not count the same way. It is not evidence of what has arrived at 555 California Street. AdvisorHub did not publish a client count, a loan-versus-investment split, or any sign of who had agreed to follow.

Merrill’s private wealth unit, AdvisorHub reported, serves customers with at least $10 million to invest. In July, before this hire, Merrill consolidated six private-wealth regions into four. Laidlaw’s reporting line, Private Wealth West under Murphy, is the spokesperson’s fact. The article does not say whether a garden leave or a solicitation restriction applies. The gap between a confirmed hire and a transferred book is exactly that list of omissions. The profile’s mention of Bank of America lending says the seat is built to use the parent balance sheet. It does not say his former clients will move deposits or credit.

What has Merrill said it wants, in the same season?

AdvisorHub reported that Bank of America chief executive Brian Moynihan said in January that Merrill co-presidents Lindsay Hans and Eric Schimpf had put aggressive targets on net new asset flow. Financial Planning quoted Bank of America co-president Dean Athanasia, at the RBC Capital Markets Global Financial Institutions Conference, saying the firm is doing “more aggressive recruiting to bring people on our platform who fit in our model and want to work in that team-based environment,” and “We have no problem recruiting.” The same Financial Planning story said Moynihan, at a December conference, said “we need advisors,” and that Merrill has about 2,400 people in its advisor-training program. Laidlaw is the other kind of addition: an experienced private banker, not a trainee. The training-class figure and his $2.2 billion are not one pipeline.

Firmwide totals should stay off his line. AdvisorHub reported that Bank of America’s Merrill unit managed $3.9 trillion in client balances at the end of 2025 and does not report a traditional broker headcount, and that J.P. Morgan Private Bank manages more than $1.4 trillion with over 4,000 advisors globally, citing the bank’s earnings figures. Financial Planning separately referred to more than 4,000 private-bank advisors and 6,000 client advisors at JPMorgan. None of those totals is this banker’s book. The [Advisor Pulse](https://intersectionadvisory.com/pulse) check for a move like this one is whether the registration, a second source, and the asset estimate are labeled separately. Here the registration is April 6 at Merrill in San Francisco, the spokesperson confirmed the person and the manager, and the $2.2 billion is AdvisorHub’s description of what he managed at J.P. Morgan, not a count of assets already on Merrill’s platform.

Sources

- https://www.advisorhub.com/merrill-lynch-nabs-j-p-morgan-private-banker-managing-2-2b-in-california/ — April 8, 2026: $2.2 billion, source revenue of $4.1 million, Murphy reporting line, spokesperson confirmation, no comment from Laidlaw or JPMorgan, private-bank portability point, February 2024 Los Angeles precedent, $10 million private-wealth threshold, region consolidation, $3.9 trillion client balances, J.P. Morgan Private Bank scale.

- https://www.financial-planning.com/news/merrill-underlines-recruiting-ambitions-with-2-2b-advisor-pulled-from-jpmorgan — April 9, 2026: former J.P. Morgan Private Bank title, same asset and revenue figures, Athanasia and Moynihan recruiting comments, training-program headcount, San Francisco career, BrokerCheck sequence.

- https://advisor.ml.com/sites/ca/san-fran-pwm/peter.laidlaw — Merrill profile: title, 555 California Street address, client types as he describes the seat, seven years as an executive director at J.P. Morgan Private Bank, education.

- https://brokercheck.finra.org/individual/summary/6091041 — Laidlaw registration dates.

- https://intersectionadvisory.com/pulse — Labeling standard for registration versus asset estimate.