Ex-JPMorgan exec to helm Wells Fargo's HNW business in the U.S. Northeast. Wells Fargo has established a full-service office of its Private Bank in New York, and hired former JPMorgan Chase executive John Duchala to spearhead its private-banking efforts in the U.S. Northeast.

Wells Fargo Private Bank is the high-net-worth unit of the bank's Wealth Management Group (WMG). It provides depositary and credit services and, through related entities, asset-management, trust and estate, insurance and brokerage services to clients who have more than $1 million in total relationship balances with Wells Fargo, mortgages aside. For clients with at least $50 million in assets Wells Fargo has a Family Wealth Group.

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"High-net-worth individuals and families need more than investment strategies and financial solutions, they deserve comprehensive advice from local professionals in their communities who will help them through every stage of their wealth lifecycle," says Jay Welker, head of Wells Fargo WMG. "We are pleased to be able to extend these services to clients in the New York metro and Northeast regions."

Before joining Wells Fargo in June 2008, Duchala had been director of JPMorgan's Private Wealth Management (PWM) group in the Northeast U.S., where he was responsible for the delivery of personal trust, private banking, brokerage, and investment-management services through about 200 PWM advisors in New York, New Jersey and New England.

JPMorgan named former Lehman Brothers executive Adam Green as Duchala's successor last week.

Wells Fargo had a three-person private-banking team attached to one of its retail-client locations New York before Duchala, a 22-year veteran of the wealth- and investment-management industry, came along. But the new Manhattan office is Wells Fargo Private Bank's first and only standalone location in the Northeast. Until now, in fact, the closest dedicated Wells Fargo Private Bank office to New York, or anywhere else in the region, was in Chicago.

Advisors with the wealth-management and private-banking units of San Francisco-based Wells Fargo served 923,171 clients and oversaw $256 billion in assets at the end of June 2008. -FWR

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