(Bloomberg News) Wells Fargo & Co., the largest U.S. bank by market value, named Jim Hays to oversee financial advisors in branches and wealth-management offices in a bid for growth and greater cooperation with the brokerage unit.
Hays, most recently president of the bank's private-client group, will oversee 3,800 advisors providing brokerage services to wealth-management clients and lead an effort to sell investment products and services through branches, the San Francisco-based lender said today in a statement. He will work closely with the retail brokerage, the third-largest in the U.S., the bank said.
Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf, 59, is seeking to expand wealth, brokerage and retirement, the division headed by David Carroll and the smallest of the company's three main business units. In December 2010, Stumpf said the business was "sub-optimized" and last year the wealth-management unit shuffled regional managers, cutting the number to seven from 12.
As head of the private-client group since 2005, Hays grew credit originations by $9 billion, according to the statement. He spent 18 years at Merrill Lynch & Co. before joining a Wells Fargo predecessor.
Wells Fargo rose 0.9 percent to $35.75 at 12:32 p.m. in New York. The shares have climbed 30 percent this year, about equal to the performance of the 24-company KBW Bank Index.