UBS Wealth Management Americas continued to hemorrhage new client assets in the third quarter at almost twice the clip from the previous quarter. Advisors also continued to walk out the door to the point that the company may not be able gain market share from competitors.

The division saw outflows of client assets of CHF 9.9 billion ($9.6 billion) for the quarter, an increase from last quarter’s outflows of CHF 5.5 billion ($5.3 billion). The unit also lost a net 653 financial advisors over the quarter, including 368 advisors who were in the branches sold to Stifel Nicolaus. The division now has a total of 7,286 advisors.

However, on the upside, Wealth Management Americas also returned to profitability this quarter, posting a CHF 110 million ($107 million) pre-tax profit versus a loss of CHF 221 million ($214 million) last quarter.

“While earlier this year, the UBS Wealth Management Americas arm had reported inflows (due to aggressive hiring), it is now also reporting outflows scarily close to the US$10 billion mark, almost double from the second quarter,” Alois Pirker, research director of Aite Group, said in a statement. “These numbers clearly indicate that the firm is not in the position to gain market share from its wirehouse rivals.”

This is the first quarterly announcement on the watch of Robert J. McCann, the new chief executive of UBS Wealth Management Americas. McCann, the former head of Merrill Lynch’s brokerage force, took the UBS job on Oct. 27 after months of speculation in the market involving the resolution of a dispute between him and his former employer, Bank of America, over a non-compete clause in his contract. That issue was resolved earlier in October, freeing McCann to accept an offer from UBS. McCann oversees the firm’s domestic wealth management business in the U.S. and Canada and for all international business booked in the U.S.
Pirker added that McCann has “his work cut out for him” balancing the need to remain profitable with the desire to offer big sign-on bonuses to attract brokers and their assets.

Overall, UBS reported a third quarter loss of CHF 564 million ($547 million). The firm said this was primarily due to an accounting charge of CHF 2.15 billion ($2.08 billion) as costs for its debt rose.