Union Bank of California said Monday that it had created an umbrella unit, IRA Solutions, to oversee sales and distribution of individual retirement accounts and had hired a Merrill Lynch executive to lead it.
Alan J. Kizor, who was also named a senior vice president, was Merrill Lynch's national sales and marketing director of administration and investments for corporate employee benefit plans.
Earlier, he was the chief executive officer and managing director of 401(k) MasterWorks, a unit of Barclays Global Investors. Before that he was the executive vice president in charge of retirement programs at Wells Fargo & Co.
Union Bank and its brokerage subsidiary, UnionBanc Investment Services LLC, sell deposit, trust, and investment IRAs. Its holding company, UnionBanCal Corp. of San Francisco, had $51.2 billion of assets at midyear; it is mostly owned by Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group Inc.
