Now that a lot of the larger integrations from its acquisition of Merrill Lynch & Co. are complete, Bank of America Corp. is looking to take advantage of some of the more subtle cross-selling opportunities.

The first such opportunity - retirement planning.

Bank of America Global Wealth and Investment Management announced a series of executive changes in an effort to take advantage of some more subtle opportunities, analysts said.

Andy Sieg, the head of retirement and philanthropic services for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said the global wealth and investment management business wants to find ways to offer its products to BofA’s existing corporate and middle market customers.

Geoffrey Bobroff of Bobroff Consulting in East Greenwich, R.I., said BofA has an opportunity to work with Merrill Lynch to assemble a broader employee benefit program for corporate clients that could mean a significant increase in assets.

“I think there was the obvious cross-selling opportunity that everyone realized when BofA bought Merrill, but beneath that there are a lot of opportunities for BofA and Merrill to coventure,” he said. “There are a lot of opportunities to integrate services in a lot of different ways.”

Cross-selling is a major part of BofA’s growth strategy, Sieg said, as he looks to increase its $450 billion in assets under management in his retirement and philanthropic services unit.

“We have significant growth targets that are rooted in better serving our existing clients and broadening and deepening those relationships and reaching out and partnering with other areas of the bank to deliver more services to institutional clients that touch the banks in other areas,” he said.

Sallie Krawcheck, hired in August as the Charlotte company's head of wealth management and brokerage operations, has identified retirement as an area of growth for BofA.

During an Oct. 5 press conference, she called the business "a hidden gem" for BofA. "You don't hear much about it, but you will be hearing more about it," she promised.

Sieg, who was hired by Krawcheck from Citigroup Inc. to lead its retirement growth initiative, said it is critical to look at the entire organization to find areas of synergy. 

“I think you see in many organizations that businesses grow in silos,” he said. “We have to make sure best of class solutions are available across all of our businesses.”

Sieg said that the realigned retirement management team, which was announced Tuesday, will help the company improve its cross-selling.

Kevin Crain, who was head of plan participant solutions, will now serve of head of institutional client relationships, responsible for institutional retirement business development as well as client relationship management.

Sieg said that Crain will be responsible for “building bridges” between the retirement management team and “other areas of the bank,” specifically the commercial banking business, which maintain relationships with midsized businesses nationally.

“Historically, BofA didn’t have scale capabilities around 401(k) plans and other retirement platforms, but coming out of the merger we can now bring more retirement solutions to our clients,” Sieg said. “We want to take advantage of that.”

The company also announced that Aimee DeCamillo, the head of personal retirement solutions for Merrill Lynch's global wealth management division, will look for ways to cross-sell retirement education and planning, IRA products and rollover process, 401(k) plan participant solutions, 529 plans, health savings accounts, retirement income solutions and channel management.

Sieg said that this can be a real “growth engine” for B of A.

The company also announced it rehired David Roberts as head of equity plan services. He will be responsible for managing its equity plan platform and the executive advisory services program, as well as the non-qualified deferred compensation platform.

Roberts left the brokerage firm earlier this year after Merrill was acquired by BofA in January.

This executive realignment isn’t BofA’s first attempt under Krawcheck and Sieg to add retirement assets. In October, BofA introduced the “My Retirement Income” products that allow customers nearing, or in, retirement to automatically transfer, monthly or quarterly, funds from a Merrill Lynch cash management account into a Bank of America deposit account. (For more on this: "B of A Rebrands Merrill Image with Product Push")