Exec's responsibilities expanded in wake of bank's U.S. Trust acquisition. Bank of America has named Larry Bell as the Houston market executive for its newly expanded private-wealth management arm. The appointment comes on the heels of its acquisition of U.S. Trust.

Four months later

Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America completed its acquisition of U.S. Trust from Schwab on 1 July 2007. Since then U.S. Trust, the Private Bank of Bank of America and Bank of America's Family Wealth Advisors have been combined to form U.S. Trust Bank of America Private Wealth Management.

In his new role, Bell will be responsible for Bank of America's newly expanded wealth business in the greater Houston area and in New Orleans. He was made Private Bank of Bank of America's market executive for the same area in March 2007.

Bell, a Houston resident for about 40 years, has been with Bank of America for most of his 25-year career. Before joining its private bank in 1990, he held a number of positions within the bank's credit-policy group and was a relationship manager in the bank's commercial-banking group.

With U.S. Trust under its belt, Bank of America's wealth-management group has around $265 billion in assets under management and more than $427 billion in total client assets. -FWR

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