Wells Fargo is adding employees in wealth management and would be open to acquisitions in that area, according to Bloomberg.

“We’re adding people there, and if there were the right opportunity at the right time, that could be interesting to us,” chief executive officer John Stumpf said at a Goldman Sachs investor conference in New York.

Wells Fargo, which has $1.3 trillion in client assets, is the third largest wirehouse brokerage, behind Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and Merrill Lynch.

Wells Fargo may be limited in the acquisitions it can complete because it controls “a little over” the regulatory maximum of 10 per cent of US deposits, Stumpf said.

Wells Fargo has completed 58 acquisitions in the past five years, led by its $12.7 billion purchase of Wachovia during the depths of the financial crisis, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.