Comerica Inc.'s asset management unit is hoping to develop new assets in the bank's western markets - California and Arizona - by hiring more financial consultants to increase its presence in the bank's footprint there.
David K. Skolnik, promoted Wednesday to be the regional managing director of Comerica's wealth and institutional management division in those western markets, said the Detroit-based asset management operation is in "major growth mode." The company has nine wealth management offices and 51 bank branches in its western region, and Mr. Skolnik said he wants to grow.
"My priority from day one is to bring on a select growth of people that have experience as financial planners," he said. "We are not looking to bring on people that we will have to train. We want people that have experience, whether that be as private bankers or financial consultants. We are looking for very high-end planners."
Comerica Bank's California offices include San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, Fresno, Sacramento, Santa Cruz-Monterey, and Walnut Creek; and it has a regional office in Phoenix. In the second quarter, the western markets generated 37% of the parent Comerica's net income from $13.6 billion of assets (at June 30).
Mr. Skolnik said Comerica must focus on "high-touch" services in order to cross-sell more asset management services to high-net-worth customers.
"We don't want to hire a huge amount of people," he said. "We want to get experienced, high-touch people that can work locally. That is part of the culture at Comerica. To grow locally we have to be high-touch. That will give us the feel of a local bank with the scale of a national bank."
The parent, too, is looking to expand its presence in the West. A spokesman said Comerica Bank plans to add 10 to 14 branches in the western region in the next 12 months in clusters that predominantly target high-net-worth people. Mr. Skolnik said he is "open-minded" about expanding the wealth management business to mirror this planned growth.
"We want to continue to piggyback with the retail branches," Mr. Skolnik said. "As Comerica builds out its retail branches, we want to look for locations around them that make sense."
Analysts said Comerica has an aggressive national expansion plan. In addition to California, Texas and Florida are on the Detroit bank's growth radar, they said.
"Growing an asset management business into new regions can be difficult for banks," said Burton Greenwald, an analyst at BJ Greenwald Associates in Philadelphia. "Banks really rely on having that local presence and a large contingent of customers to sell to. This becomes more and more difficult the further you are from your home base."
Comerica hired Mr. Skolnik last October from Nationwide Financial Services in New York where he was a regional vice president. Previously, he was an executive vice president and director of sales and marketing for the private-client services division of Wells Fargo & Co. in San Francisco. He said Comerica has developed strong lending relationships in California, including relationships with small-business owners, and he hopes these relationships can be springboards for cross-selling.
The company is in the midst of analyzing its customers in California, he said, and trying to determine how many are also asset management customers.
"My sense is, it is a relatively small number," Mr. Skolnik said. "But there lies the great opportunity for us to increase that percentage. These customers are going somewhere for investment management. They are going somewhere for financial planning. They are going somewhere for their estate planning. We want to be the institution that they go to."
