Former Commerce Bancorp Capital Markets head Gregor joins bank's HNW unit. Wachovia has made a couple of significant appointments in the last week or so.

The big one is Stan Gregor, former CEO of Commerce Bancorp 's Capital Markets division, who has joined as president of Wachovia's Wealth Markets group. In addition Winston Wilkinson, formerly head of Fifth Third 's retail-banking business, returns to Wachovia as director of its private-banking business in California and Arizona.

Gregor leads a team within Wachovia Wealth Management (Wachovia WM) that focuses on clients with at least $5 million in investable assets.

Early warning

Segmentation with a view to wooing mid- and top-tier millionaires is new to Wachovia -- at least this sort of sifting is new outside its Calibre multifamily office.

A few months ago the Charlotte-based bank took Wachovia Private Advisory Group out of its retail bank and made it part of Wachovia WM, re-naming it Wachovia Wealth Management Private Banking in the process. This group, which focuses on clients with between $250,000 and $5 million, is managed by Morrison Creech.

The point of putting the old Private Advisory Group into Wachovia WM is, in part, to be in a position to transition those of the bank's low-tier wealth clients who become top-tier clients to higher-end services through its Capital Markets group or, presumably, Calibre.

In effect, Wachovia's wealth-business strategy is similar to Boston Private's "lifecycle" approach to serving high-net-worth segments.

Tremendous opportunity

Gregor is based in Charlotte. He reports to Wachovia Wealth Management president Stanhope Kelly.

"We have honed our wealth management platform to reach a new high in client loyalty and are eager to embrace new clients and deepen our relationship with existing ones," says Kelly. "Stan Gregor's multifaceted career and dynamic leadership will serve us well as we aggressively expand our Wealth Management business."

With the backing of "the nation's fourth-largest bank," Gregor says the Wealth Markets group has "a tremendous opportunity to win new market share."

Gregor was head of wealth management, institutional trading and sales, structured finance, investment banking, derivatives, trust services, brokerage and asset management at Cherry Hill, N.J.-based Commerce Bancorp. Before joining that outfit in 2005 he was CEO of FleetBoston's Quick & Reilly, a discount broker-dealer that has since become part of Bank of America's retail brokerage business.

Up and coming

Oakland, Calif.-based Wilkinson is making his second appearance at Wachovia. Before he joined Cincinnati-based Fifth Third he was with Wachovia Mortgage for 15 years, where he served the bank's Georgia and northern Florida markets. He has also worked for Atlanta-based SunTrust Banks.

Wilkinson, who reports to Creech, will be working mainly with working professionals who need financial and estate planning, credit and insurance guidance. Wachovia says this is an underserved market.

"These are busy people with complex lives who need advice to simplify their finances," says Creech. "We know more about their needs than ever before, and Winston and his teams will help us to not only meet but to exceed their expectations."

Wachovia WM plans to double the number of its relationships managers over the next several years and add new teams under Wilkinson in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Phoenix, Ariz.

A few weeks ago Wachovia hired made veteran executive Jeff Hartman private-banking director for its Carolinas-Virginia, mid-South and Georgia region. It has also appointed Maria Juantorena Trafton, another long-time staffer, as director of its private-banking business in Florida.

Wachovia, which is in the process of buying St. Louis, Mo.-based brokerage A.G. Edwards, calls itself the fifth largest wealth manager in the U.S. -FWR

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