Hancock Planning to Beef Up Team That Markets to Banks

John Hancock Funds is expanding its bank wholesaler corps in hope of building its business through that distribution channel.

Last year, for the first time, the Boston-based company assigned wholesalers-five of them-to market only to financial institutions. Plans are to add two more by April, said Ted Breen, director of sales in the company's financial institutions division.

Within two years Hancock wants to double, to 100, the number of banks that recommend its mutual funds, he said. It started a concerted effort to distribute through banks in 1995.

Mr. Breen moved into his present position in December, a month after William Nichols left to join Funds Distributor, also in Boston. Mr. Breen assumed Mr. Nichols' responsibility for fixed annuity sales in addition to his responsibility for mutual fund sales, which he has held since 1994.

Hancock's bank wholesalers coordinate the sales of funds, variable and fixed annuities, long-term-care insurance, life insurance, and retirement plans.

Having individual wholesalers handle such a range of products is unusual. But Mr. Breen said it should give Hancock an edge in signing up banks and allow it to expand its relationships with existing bank partners.

"That's our goal, if we're in with one product, to try to get our other products in there as well," Mr. Breen said.

Kenneth Kehrer, a consultant in Princeton, N.J., said that the single- wholesaler strategy looks good on paper because it is cheaper than sending separate wholesalers to sell individual products.

"The question is: Could someone be good at all that?" he said. Wholesalers who promote more than one product often talk up the one in which they have more of an interest, Mr. Kehrer said.

Richard Hansen, senior vice president of the bank channel and insurance products for Hancock, said that problem should be averted by making experts in life insurance and long-term care available to educate the wholesalers on an ongoing basis.

Hancock has a small but growing presence in the bank mutual fund business. It logged $150 million in sales in 1997, up from $40 million two years earlier, Mr. Breen said. Overall it sold $5 billion in funds last year and manages about $33 billion in funds.

Fixed annuities are the company's biggest-selling bank products; they brought in almost $500 million of sales last year.

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