S.C.-based bank to take a much closer look at its retail-bank customer base. Wachovia has made a bunch of organizational changes, including some restructuring that could have a lasting effect on its wealth-management business. Overall Wachovia says the changes are meant "to build on its industry leadership in customer service" and to "position [it] for the future."

Charlotte, N.C.-based Wachovia has expanded its Wealth Management unit to include its retail-bank-based Private Advisory Group "to form an expanded business unit focused on the affluent, high- net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth segments," according to a press release.

Life cycle

"This move positions Wealth Management for growth and enables us to deliver our robust suite of products and services across a broader client base," says Wachovia Wealth Management president Stanhope Kelly. "This new structure will enable us to leverage strong partnerships throughout Wachovia to identify affluent clients and deliver outstanding service and financial advice."

In other words, Wachovia is reaching down-market -- a bit anyway -- in an attempt to identify promising retail and small-business banking customers as candidates for private-banking, personal-trust and high-end investment-consulting services. That's at the base: Wachovia has a multifamily office for some of its ultra-high-net-worth clients.

Wachovia General Bank vice chairman Ben Jenkins says as much when he notes that making the Private Advisory Group part of its broader wealth-management business "enhances our ability to meet customer expectations regardless of where they are in their financial life cycle."

The other changes at Wachovia have to do with revamping its marketing division, putting commercial real-estate lending under its investment-banking aegis and bringing together its origination and capital-markets teams.

Wachovia has retail and commercial-banking operations in 21 states with 3,400 retail banking offices along the Eastern Seaboard in Texas and in California. -FWR

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