NationsBank Corp. has adopted a team approach in its corporate lending operations to expand the range of products and services it can offer customers.
The initiative is one of several detailed in the Charlotte, N.C.-based company's 1994 annual report, which was issued last week.
Chairman Hugh L. McColl Jr., in his letter to shareholders, said the Southeast's largest bank "refined" its approach to corporate banking last year in order to become one of the few U.S. banks enjoying "highly profitable lead positions with large corporate customers."
NationsBank estimated that it has the second-highest number of large corporate relationships among U.S. banks, after BankAmerica Corp.
Seven pages of accompanying text outline NationsBank's approach in more detail. The core of the program is to have traditional corporate banking relationship managers work closely with specialists from other NationsBank units, such as investment banking and capital markets.
"Rather than relying just on individual relationship managers, we are now addressing the needs of our clients with teams of individuals," said NationsBank vice chairman James W. Thompson in the report.
"These teams are responsible for assessing a client's strategic direction, providing financial counsel, identifying needs, putting proposed solutions on the table, and standing ready to deliver those solutions," he said.
NationsBank's team approach to corporate banking is paralleled at Charlotte-based First Union Corp., the second-largest bank in the Southeast. First Union, like NationsBank, has built up a large capital markets operation that can offer a wide range of nonloan products, such as derivatives, loan syndications, private placements, and securitizations.
First Union, too, requires its commercial relationship managers to work closely with the capital markets group when necessary.
NationsBank is the fourth-largest U.S. banking company, with $170 billion of assets. In the report, Mr. McColl said his "long-term vision is to create an important North American company spanning Canada, the United States, and Mexico - in influence if not also in operation."
NationsBank took a first step toward fulfilling that ambition last year with the purchase of factoring units in Mexico and Canada. Significantly, the company recently gave its institutional group - corporate banking and capital markets - a new name: Global Finance.
