Family Office
Wachovia executive to lead Wells Fargo's WM unit
Post-merger management team is extremely light on acquirees' top mandarins. Only one Wachovia executive, David Carroll, is slated to report Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf once Wachovia is acquired by the San Francisco-based bank.
Carroll, who leads Charlotte, N.C.-based Wachovia's capital-management business, will lead Wells Fargo's wealth-management businesses including Wachovia Securities.
The usual suspects
Wachovia almost went out of business in September because of its exposure to "toxic" mortgage-backed instruments. Then, just days after it agreed to a complicated partial takeover by Citigroup (with financial backing from the U.S. government), Wachovia opted to let Wells Fargo acquire it entirely.
The Citigroup deal would have left Wachovia Securities as an independent retail brokerage with 14,600 reps and about $1 trillion in client assets.
At least five top Wachovia executives who didn't make the cut for high-profile slots with the post-merger company will be leaving once the deal is done, according to a memo Stumpf and Wachovia CEO Robert Steel sent to employees of Wells Fargo Wachovia last week.
Wachovia honchos on the way out for sure are general bank head Ben Jenkins, corporate and investment bank head Steve Cummings, chief financial officer David Zwiener, general counsel Jane Sherburne and human resources head Shannon McFayden.
Steel has already said he doesn't plan to stick around after the merger is completed.
Word that Wachovia's retail-banking head Cece Sutton is heading to Morgan Stanley to build out that company's new retail-banking business was out just before Stumpf and Steel sent their memo to employees.
At an employee meeting in Wachovia's headquarters in October, Stumpf spoke of Wells Fargo's intention to "retain and retrain" -- presumably a pledge to find new slots for Wachovia employees made redundant by the merger. "My job will be to help all of you stay with the company," he said -- then added: "Obviously, no commitments, no promises -- but that's my goal." -FWR
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