Another out-of-towner tries its hand at luring in well-heeled Bostonians. The Bank of New York wants a bigger piece of Boston’s growing wealth market. With that in mind it plans to open a private-client office the New England city aimed at ultra-high-net-worth families and individuals.

“The expansion in Boston reflects our strong commitment to meeting the needs of the area's high-net-worth individuals and the advisors who serve them,” says Leslie Godridge, who heads the Bank of New York’s investment, wealth-management, consumer and commercial-banking businesses. “With a well-established team leading our Boston efforts, we have an experienced foundation in the city that few wealth-management providers can match.”

Strictly top drawer

A recent report by Chicago-based Northern Trust, another out-of-town suitor to Boston’s moneyed citizens, suggests that Massachusetts’ capital might not be a bad place to expand operations. Using data compiled by Claritas, San Diego-based market-research firm, Northern says that nearly 5% of Boston-area households were millionaire households 2004, and it expects the number of millionaire households in Boston – about 58,000 in 2004 – to hit 88,000 by 2009.

Though metropolises like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago have more high-end households in absolute terms, Boston’s higher per capita puts it in a league with go-go wealth towns like Atlanta and Dallas. But unlike those cities, Boston’s overall household growth lags that of its high-net-worth household growth, so that its economic elite is likely to have a greater impact on Boston’s commerce and culture than their counterparts in other towns with rapidly growing affluent populations.

That said, on-the-ground newcomers to Boston like Northern, the Bank of New York and SEI, which has established a multi-family office there, face no shortage of local competition, large and small, with deep roots in the area’s high-net-worth community.

Make way for advisors

The Bank of New York's Boston private-client office will be part of its trust company – mainly says a company spokesman, because the trust company has a national charter. It's setting up shop in the Berkeley Street digs of Gannett Welsh & Kotler, a Bank of New York affiliate that manages about $7 billion in equity and fixed income investments for high-net-worth individuals and small to midsize institutions. The Bank of New York acquired Gennet Welsh & Kotler in 2002. The firm was established in 1974.

The Berkeley Street location also houses Beacon Fiduciary Advisors, a fifteen-year-old asset manager that, like Gennet Welsh & Kotler, the Bank of New York took over in 2002. Beacon, which manages about $850 million for high-net-worth individuals, will lose its name and become a part of the Bank of New York's trust company.

William Flemer will lead the Bank of New York’s new Boston-based wealth team, which will deliver investment-management, trust and fiduciary services, and family-office custody and performance-measurement services to high net worth clients in the Boston area. The team will also provide services for financial advisors and family offices, including financial and tax planning, estate planning, lending and, through The Bank of New York or one of its affiliates, private brokerage.

Flemer, a veteran corporate and private banker, has lived in Boston for more than 25 years. Before joining the Bank of New York three years ago as head of business development for its private bank, he held senior positions with the Bank of Boston and its successor company Fleet Boston (now part of Bank of America).

The new office location will also house the Bank of New York’s corporate trust team, bringing the Bank of New York’s total headcount in Boston to about 100. –FWR

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