RidgeWorth Investments has added two additional sales executives to the six it recently hired for its newly created retail channel sales team led by Bob Kuberski, with Michael Reynolds and Mitchell Izumi joining the firm.
"We are excited that Michael and Mitchell have joined our group of experienced sales consultants," said Kuberski, RidgeWorth Investments' national sales manager for the retail channel. "Their level of experience in the asset management industry will further strengthen RidgeWorth's ability to substantially grow in the retail channel."
"Now that we have assembled a first-class retail channel distribution team, we look forward to partnering with wealth advisers and registered investment advisors to bring them a suite of strong investment ideas that will help them create solutions for their clients," said Jim Stueve, president of RidgeWorth.
Reynolds, regional vice president for central states, has nine years of industry experience and comes to the firm from Pioneer. Izumi, regional vice president for the Southwest, has 23 years of industry experience and comes to the firm from Guggenheim Funds.
The other six members of the sales team are:
* John Baka, regional vice president, Great Lakes, who has 12 years of industry experience, most recently with RiverSource.
* Domenic Diele, regional vice president for the New York/New Jersey metro area, who has 18 years of industry experience, most recently with John Hancock Funds.
* Gabriel Detra, Jr., regional vice president for New England, who has 13 years of industry experience, most recently with Allianz.
* Blake Jones, regional vice president for the Southeast, with six years of industry experience, most recently with Pioneer.
* Scott Martin, regional vice president for the Northwest, who has five years of industry experience, most recently with Pioneer.
* Wade Monroe, regional vice president, Mid-Atlantic, with seven years of industry experience, most recently as a retirement and investment specialist at RidgeWorth.
ETF Securities Hires Magnusson as SVP, Sales
ETF Securities has appointed Dan Magnusson to the U.S. sales team, with the title of senior vice president, sales. Based in San Francisco, Magnusson will work with retail and institutional advisers and wealth managers in the Western region.
A 14-year veteran of the financial markets industry, Magnusson comes to ETF Securities from Guggenheim Funds, where he was a regional vice president responsible for cultivating relationships, building brand awareness and increasing business.
Before that, Magnusson worked at GCG Financial as a financial adviser concentrating on the mid-size business and medical market. Earlier, he worked within the commodities markets at the Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Board of Options.
"We are delighted to announce that Dan Magnusson has joined the firm," said William Rhind, managing director at ETF Securities. "His experience will be invaluable as we expand ETF Securities' sales coverage in the key exchange-traded product market."
BoA to Double Ranks of Fin'l Solutions Advisers
Bank of America Merrill Lynch will double the ranks of what it calls its Financial Solutions Advisers by year's end.
BoA plans to hire more than 500 FSAs, who serve its "preferred" customers, managing their banking and investment needs and better controlling their finances. That will bring the total number of advisers in the year-old FSA program to more than 1,000.
The preferred customers BoA is targeting have between $50,000 and $250,000 of investable assets-one of the fastest-growing segments of the industry-but a profile that's not right for full-service financial advisers or private-banking relationships, said Cary Grace, a preferred sales executive at Bank of America.
"But they're still at the point where they want guidance and to feel more in control of their financial life," she said.
The FSAs are fully securities-licensed and receive banking and investment training from Bank of America. The recruiting goal is aimed at expanding what started as a phone center-based operation. Over the past two quarters, more of the new recruits have been stationed within banking centers and that will continue, Grace said.
Feedback from preferred customers indicates that face-to-face interaction is still very important, Grace added.
Why is Bank of America Merrill Lynch so interested in clients with relatively modest wealth?
Because there are a lot of them (eight million investors, according to BoA) and they have total assets worth more than $5 trillion, Grace said, and retail brokers such as Fidelity and Charles Schwab are also gunning for this lucrative segment.
Citi Private Bank Hires U.S. Trust's McDermott
Citi Private Bank has hired U.S. Trust executive Patricia McDermott as managing director and head of Connecticut and Westchester.
McDermott will be based in Greenwich, Conn., and report to Eastern regional executive Paul Hubert.
At U.S. Trust, McDermott was a managing director and market executive for Westport and New Haven, Conn. Before that, she served as a Connecticut market leader for BNY Mellon Wealth Management and Connecticut regional market executive for Bank of New York's Putnam Trust division.
The appointment comes after Citi Private Bank named Morgan Stanley Private Bank executive Christopher Adams to the position of managing director of investment finance earlier this month.
Citi Private Bank targets ultra-high-net-worth clients with $25 million or more in investable assets.
