First Bank's Brokerage Sales Chief Loses Job in Streamlining

The national sales manager at First Bank System's brokerage has left the company amid restructuring at his unit.

Richard Adams left FBS Investment Services two weeks ago, a company spokeswoman confirmed.

Three months ago, the bank began looking for functions to consolidate, said Wendy Raway, a spokeswoman at the Minneapolis-based company. As a result, Mr. Adams' retail administration responsibilities were integrated into the retail branch group, she said, and his job was eliminated.

Those back-office functions are now managed by Joseph Tessmer, president of the brokerage, Ms. Raway said.

First Bank has a reputation for running an efficient operation by consolidating employee responsibilities and reducing back-office costs. For example, its investment product sales force also sells life insurance. And after it acquired Firstier Financial Inc., it converted and integrated the Omaha bank's operations into its own while publicly battling Wells Fargo & Co. for First Interstate Bancorp last year.

Mr. Adams is not the first casualty of a bank merging its investment operation into another division.

Late last year, after American Savings Bank moved supervision of its brokerage under the head of its mortgage lending operation, Randall Ciccati left his job as president of the Irvine, Calif.-based thrift's brokerage.

American Savings officials said they wanted to combine the 40-member investment products marketing and administrative staff with the 300 employees who did the same things for the mortgage lending operation.

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