Present head of Wealth and Institutional Management to retire early in 2009. Comerica has picked former Wachovia executive Curtis Farmer to lead its Wealth and Institutional Management division. He's slated to replace Dennis Mooradian, who is expected to retire early in 2009.

Mooradian joined Detroit-basedComerica from San Francisco-based Wells Fargo in 2003. At Comerica, he "was instrumental in building a highly effective Wealth and Institutional Management team at Comerica, and drove growth in the company's private banking, trust and investment businesses," Comerica says in a press release. "He led the expansion of the product and service offering, improved technology, facilities and training and recruited many talented professionals."

Multi-line

In his 23 years at Wachovia, Farmer held a number of senior positions with the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank. Most recently he was director of its wealth-management segment. Among other jobs at Wachovia, he was managing executive and national sales manger for Wachovia's personal-trust company and private-client businesses in Charlotte, director of wealth management in Philadelphia, and managing executive for corporate marketing and strategic planning.

As head of Comerica's Wealth and Institutional Management unit, Farmer will oversee the delivery and development of the bank's fiduciary, private-banking, retirement, investment-management and advisory, investment-banking and discount-securities services as well as annuity-product and insurance sales.

Farmer starts at Comerica on 20 October 2008.

Comerica's Wealth and Institutional Management division accounted for $70 million in revenue last year, which was about 15% of the company's total top line. It does business in Comerica's four primary retail-banking footprint in the U.S. West, the Midwest, Texas and Florida. -FWR

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