To understand the future of private banking at Chase Manhattan Corp., consider the personal past of Arjun K. Mathrani.
Born in India and educated at Cambridge University, he had worked in Asia, Latin America, Europe, and the United States before assuming his current post as chief of worldwide asset management and private banking.
"A signature of our institution is our globality," he says in courtly tones.
Indeed, for their sheer scope, Mr. Mathrani's businesses are almost in a world of their own. Chase manages or administers more than $100 billion of assets for some 20,000 individuals in 120 countries. The clientele-people who bring to the bank at least $1 million of assets-are split evenly among Americans and citizens of other countries.
Among U.S. banks, only Citicorp enjoys such broad global reach in asset management. And Mr. Mathrani, who assumed his post early this year, intends to fully mine all the markets and make maximum use of their combined scale.
That means developing more sophisticated products, changing the job descriptions of account managers, and exporting a common marketing strategy in the United States to other markets around the world.
These efforts, Mr. Mathrani says, are central to the overall strategy of the parent company.
"We view our asset management business as the gateway into the whole world of Chase Manhattan Bank," he says.
Mr. Mathrani brings a broad understanding of Chase, having begun his career as a corporate account officer with the "old" Chase, in London in 1969. He rose through the ranks to become chief financial officer before the company's 1995 merger with Chemical Banking Corp.
At the new Chase, he headed up global wholesale banking until February, when he swapped jobs with James W. Zeigon, previously the asset management chief.
Building on his experience in corporate banking, Mr. Mathrani is hoping to persuade more overseas business customers to invest their personal money with Chase. Many private bankers in the United States have been targeting entrepreneurs, and Mr. Mathrani sees great potential for this strategy in other countries.
"There is a tremendous linkage between the private and business sides of the clients' needs," he says. Business owners, he adds, "are much more hands on and actively involved in the management of their assets" than other clients.
To help win over these customers, Chase has been setting up formal teams to work with entrepreneurs, middle-market business owners, wealthy families, and other client groups.
"We can take the experience of one (client) and bring it to the others," says Henry E. Gooss, chief investment officer for Chase's private banking. "We have luxury of specialization in different segments of wealth market that gives us more experience and more relevance."
Account managers, meanwhile, are taking an increasingly broad view of clients' needs. Though account managers at the old Chemical often specialized by product, the merged company fields generalist bankers-called client relationship managers-who harness a variety of services provided by specialists in each country. The services include investment management, trust and estates, capital markets, risk management, and foreign exchange.
"When you have the range of products we have, you've got to have an integration point," said Mr. Mathrani. "It's the only way you can pull it together."
With its clientele growing bigger and more sophisticated, Chase is making sure that its product lineup keeps pace.
For example, the bank is expanding its research capabilities in Singapore and Latin America, and is considering creating a proprietary hedge fund.
Mr. Gooss, the investment chief, has "got to feel comfortable with hedge funds and derivatives," Mr. Mathrani said. "The days of people like Hank feeling comfortable only with equity and fixed income are gone."
In April, Chase rolled out a product allowing U.S. investors to tap into 30 hedge funds, which use maverick investment strategies including short- selling stocks or buying distressed securities.
Chase Multi-Strategy Fund has $10 million of assets under management and a $250,000 minimum investment. Its two-year-old offshore counterpart, for foreign investors who do not want to invest assets in the United States, has $300 million invested.
Fortunately for Chase, its two predecessor banks had little overlap in private banking. Chemical's stronghold was in the United States, primarily in the metropolitan New York area. Chase had more of an international bent.
The combination clearly packs punch, with Chase ranking as the world's fifth largest asset manager and the largest U.S. bank in the field. Chase manages a total of $131 billion of assets for individuals and institutions.
Citicorp manages $120 billion of assets and operates 21 investment centers worldwide. Some other U.S.-based banks-such as BankAmerica Corp., BankBoston Corp., and SunTrust Banks Inc.-have developed private banking in particular regions, but not nearly as widespread.
Domestically Chase competes with Bessemer Trust Co., U.S. Trust Corp., and Citicorp, but Chase officials say most of the competition comes from investment banks like Goldman, Sachs & Co.
As Mr. Mathrani proceeds against this array of rivals, one of his strongest weapons is himself; his calendar is packed with breakfasts, lunches, and dinners with individual clients around the world.
"Having that involvement with clients is going to give him a better perspective of what the client managers are dealing with in the marketplace," Mr. Gooss said.
