Finance chief tapped by Chase to lead Global Services unit.

Chase Manhattan Corp. Wednesday completed a corporate restructuring it launched in 1990, naming E. Michel Kruse to head its global financial services division.

The division unites corporate finance, risk management, capital markets, transaction and information services, and private banking.

The 50-year-old executive will report directly to Chase president and chief operating officer Arthur P. Ryan.

The unit becomes one of three main operating divisions of the bank, along with regional banking, headed by Don L. Boudreau, and national consumer products, headed by Robert Hunter.

Mr. Kruse, an executive vice president who currently is chief financial officer, assumes his new responsibilities on Monday.

Filling the Gaps

The bank moved two other veteran executives up in its heirarchy to fill openings created by Mr. Kruse's appointment.

Arjun K. Mathrani, treasurer since 1991, has been named chief financial officer, and Deborah Duncan, who has held a variety of positions in Chase's corporate controller unit since 1979, has replaced Mr. Mathrani.

The decision to put wholesale, capital markets, and other businesses into a single division represented the final stage of the bank's recent reorganization, a Chase spokesman said.

"We see this as a further step in the integration of our global business."

Starting in the late 1980s, Chase shed most of its local commercial banking operations outside the United States, retaining only those it could run on a worldwide basis.

These are mainly aimed at large corporate and institutional customers and wealthy individuals.

In a statement released Wednesday, Chase chairman Thomas Labrecque said the integration of Chase's worldwide operations would "enhance" the bank's competitive advantage.

The restructuring, he said, is designed to help make the bank "the provider of choice to corporations, institutions, and highnet worth individuals around the world."

"It sets up a structure comparable to what existed for our other businesses," the Chase spokesman said. The national consumer products division, for example, encompasses credit cards, home mortgages, and auto finance.

The German-born Mr. Kruse studied at the Free University of Berlin and at Stanford University and obtained a master's degree in finance from Hamburg University in 1971.

He joined Chase that year and was named chief financial officer two years ago. Previously, Mr. Kruse served as deputy executive for North American corporate finance and as product risk executive for global corporate finance.

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