Bank of New York Co.’s private bank started an advice division Thursday to improve its image as a high-net-worth manager.
Stephen Doty, who heads the investment adviser services division, said it will adopt industry trends such as open architecture, unified managed accounts, and consolidated reporting to attract assets and, it hopes, improve its reputation with wealthy people.
“We want to … prove we are able to provide sophisticated solutions to our customers,” he said.
Richard X. Bove, an analyst at Punk, Ziegel & Co. in New York, said the bank lacks a strong reputation as a high-net-worth asset manager. “It is an area that they speak about wanting to get into,” he said, “but it isn’t an area that they have had any great success.”
The bank must hire people that have strong relationships in place, Mr. Bove said, in order to succeed.
Mr. Doty said his division is a team of 20 investment advisers and associates dedicated to meeting the needs of clients with at least $1 million of investable assets. The bank also said Thursday that it had hired a team of three from Citigroup Inc.’s Smith Barney brokerage unit in New York who have a track record with high-net-worth investors.
The hirings will continue, said Mr. Doty, who was head of BNY Asset Management’s personal asset management division before being named to run the new division. He said he hopes to grow significantly from the $60 billion of assets the private bank currently manages or administers for high-net-worth clients.
Mr. Doty said his unit will use the open-architecture platform of Lockwood Advisors, a subsidiary of the bank that specializes in separately managed accounts.
Bank of New York’s private bank has offered a form of unified managed account, he said, but did not have outside managers “readily accessible” to wealthy investors.
“It isn’t that the bank hasn’t provided sophisticated solutions before,” Mr. Doty said. “We are trying, with Lockwood, to bring the right resources and solutions to the table for our clients.”
