PNC rebrands wealth businesses as lenders vie for rich clients

PNC Financial Services Group renamed its wealth businesses and is devoting more staff and financial resources to serving rich individuals as competition among lenders for affluent clients heats up.

Personal-wealth businesses in the asset-management arm will be consolidated under the newly christened PNC Private Bank brand headed by Don Heberle, PNC said Monday in a statement.

The Pittsburgh-based company will bolster the ranks of its wealth employees nationwide, either placing staff in new markets through the recently completed acquisition of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA’s U.S. business or expanding its existing footprint. The transaction offers a foothold in the U.S. West and Southeast, including some of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the country, according to data compiled by PNC.

“When we think about where we want to take our wealth business — really, our entire asset-management business — the most exciting thing for us about the BBVA acquisition is that it allows us to establish a presence in all of these attractive markets,” asset management chief Carole Brown said in a phone interview.

The planned personnel changes will be accompanied by investments in technology and administrative capabilities. The bank will also beef up family office services for the ultra-affluent. It declined to spell out the scope of that spending and the additions to its workforce.

The move by PNC comes as banks work to win over clients who reaped windfalls thanks to a raging stock market rally fueled by government stimulus, as well as surging home prices.

Bank of America last month said it had increased its private wealth staff in Florida by 40% as it seeks to double its presence there. JPMorgan Chase plans to boost the number of advisors in its traditional broker business by more than 500 to 1,000 in the next five years. Citigroup and Deutsche Bank AG are also beefing up wealth-management units.

“It’s an attractive sector,” Brown said, noting that her business offers the highest returns of PNC’s three segments despite being the smallest of the trio. “The opportunity I think that all of us are trying to position for is this multitrillion-dollar wealth transfer that’s happening and will continue to happen over the next decade.”

Brown said that robust capital markets contributed as the asset-management arm posted double-digit gains in the second quarter from a year earlier. She also credited investments and strategic moves.

“A lot of it is the work we did to streamline and focus our business,” Brown said, citing investments in technology and the sale of funds that didn’t mesh well with operations.