Alliance Capital Management plans to hire an executive soon to oversee its sales through banks, filling a post left vacant for four months.
Michael Laughlin, chairman of Alliance's fund distribution arm, said he plans to announce his choice to fill the bank managing director post within a week or two.
The new hire will replace William O'Grady, senior vice president and national sales manager, who left in April for a similar job at competitor Fidelity Investments.
For the past year, the bank channel has been troubling for New York- based Alliance, which manages $22.6 billion. Through banks, the fund company was mostly selling bond funds, which plummeted in value when the market crashed last year.
"We were the third-largest seller of mutual funds through banks in 1993; the last time I looked, we were about eighth," Mr. Laughlin said. He added, however, that fund sales through banks had risen 24% since Mr. O'Grady's departure, due to an emphasis on equity funds, which have been aided by a rising stock market.
Mr. Laughlin said he is hoping a change in the job's focus will help improve the company's status among its bank clients.
The new executive will take a long-term approach to strengthen the fund company's relationships with banks, rather than being "totally driven by daily sales flows," he said.
Rather than scramble to get bank brokers to push Alliance funds, the company will begin pushing a variety of services, including asset allocation programs and technology support and training for bank brokers. Alliance will even offer up its 20 or so international research analysts to bank trust departments.
When Mr. O'Grady was marketing to banks, he spent 80% of his time trying to boost bank clients' sales of Alliance mutual funds, Mr. Laughlin said. He also managed 12 wholesalers - sales people whose job was to travel the country and push fund sales through banks.
These wholesalers won't report to the new executive, however. Instead, they will report to four regional directors who in turn will report to Mr. O'Grady's replacement.
