U.S. Trust’s latest hires and what’s expected of them

U.S. hired three new wealth managers in December for its Western Division, nabbing the alumni of companies including JPMorgan’s Private Wealth Management Group, Lewis Capital Management and City National Bank. It also added talent from VNBTrust and Everspan Financial Guaranty to bolster its East Coast presence in Virginia and New York.

The new West Coast hires include Chad Reddy, Barbara Bagley and Cornelius Mercea. Reddy will be the regional trust executive for Northern California, based in San Francisco. He will be responsible for driving the firm’s trust business and strategy across the Northern California-Nevada region. Most recently, Reddy worked at City National Bank in Beverly Hills. The East Coast hires include Judy Slotkin who is slated for New York’s midtown office and Charles H. Ewald who will work from Charlottesville.

For more on what U.S. Trust is up to in the West, see U.S. Trust adds hundreds of wealth managers for West Coast poaching campaign.

Bagley is a senior vice president and portfolio manager in Century City, Calif. Previously, she was a vice president and portfolio manager for Beverly Hills-based boutique asset manager Lewis Capital Management, LLC.

Local flavor

Mercea is a Tucson-based senior vice president and portfolio manager. He most recently worked as an investment advisor for JPMorgan’s Private Wealth Management Group.

Judy Slotkin, a native New Yorker, is one of three U.S. Trust Market Executives in the New York metro area. She is responsible for delivering U.S. Trust’s service to ultra-high net worth clients.

Ewald, a Charlottesville native, is a senior vice president and private Client Consultant who will apply his expertise in trust and estate settlement, private equity funds and lending to deliver U.S. Trust’s signature client service to ultra-high net worth clients. Prior to VNBTrust, Ewald was employed by Bank of America for almost 20 years as a Senior Vice President and Private Client Manager of the firm’s Private Bank and as a Relationship Manager within the Premier Bank.

Unlike breakaway brokers of wirehouses, wealth managers coming to U.S. Trust are not expected to bring their books of business with them, U.S. Trust West Division Executive Thong Nguyen. Nor are they being paid the kind of recruiting bonuses often forked over by wirehouses. Still, U.S. Trust is able to lure them in because they are “well taken care of” and the bankers “can service clients better,” according to Nguyen. Taking care of the bankers starts with a very “attractive” compensation plan.

If assets follow the bankers to U.S. Trust, of course, it’s not discouraged.

Sticky trust assets

“It’s not that we don’t want [recruited bankers to bring assets], but if the assets are tied to a trust, it’s very sticky,” Nguyen says.

The new wealth managers will be making the case that U.S. Trust’s long history of helping families with very large fortunes trumps that of independent RIAs — and other trust companies. Nguyen says the company has vast experience in dealing with “hard assets” including vineyards, ranches, yachts, jets and artworks.

“We can talk about the whole thing,” he says.