BB&T Corp.'s wealth management division plans to develop new business by targeting mass-affluent investors.
Leading that effort in the division's private financial services group will be Mike Woody, hired last week as the sales and service leader for the 585-employee group, which focuses on mass-affluent small-business owners, corporate executives, and professionals with assets of $250,000 to $1 million.
Mr. Woody, 59, said he will manage 33 regional private financial services teams across the Winston-Salem, N.C., company's 11-state service area from Washington to southern Florida.
"We have a good opportunity in most markets in the Southeast," he said in an interview last week. "We have a strong presence in nine of the 11 states, and our intention is to leverage the franchise and target customers in our focus markets."
Mr. Woody, whose 30 years in financial services have included a 24-year run with Bank of America Corp. that ended in 2000, said cross-selling to the mass affluent can work for BB&T.
"If we can bring a trusted adviser to these clients," he said, "we have an opportunity to then bring them a full array of financial products" — financial planning, insurance products, bank products, and investment products as well as wealth management products.
"The linchpin to our success is becoming the adviser to these customers," he said. "Once we become the adviser, we can advocate and advise them on the types of products and services that they need."
In 2003 BB&T split its wealth management unit into groups: the private financial services group, which has $10 billion of assets; the wealth management group for investors with $1 million to $10 million of assets; and the ultrawealthy group for investors with more than $10 million.
Under BB&T Wealth Management, affluent clients are advised by a personal relationship manager who is supported by a team of product specialists from BB&T lines of business.
Mr. Woody said the best strategy is to create relationships with the mass affluent and emerging wealthy before they become wealthy. "We know that all of our competitors are focused on these customer groups," he said. "Everyone sees the opportunity. We think that by using the relationship manager/trust adviser model we are uniquely positioned. We think that by really focusing on the customer everything can resonate from there."
Mr. Woody, who has worked for smaller financial institutions since leaving Bank of America, said BB&T has no immediate plan to expand into new regions. He said BB&T can have strong organic expansion in its existing markets.
"Year over year, our growth has been impressive, and we expect to continue to grow," he said. (He would not specify how much the unit has grown over the past few years; BB&T does not break these numbers out publicly, he said.)
