Top Credit Suisse Group AG private bankers are being fought over by competitors after Wells Fargo & Co. struck a recruitment deal with the Swiss lender, the U.S. bank's head of wealth management said.
"There's a little bit of a feeding frenzy for some of the higher-end producers," David Carroll, who runs Wells Fargo's wealth- and investment-management division, said Wednesday at a conference in New York. He said Wells Fargo has entertained 211 of Credit Suisse's 270 or so advisers at its St. Louis brokerage headquarters.
Wells Fargo reached an agreement last month with Credit Suisse giving it the inside track on recruiting the Zurich-based company's private-bank employees as the firm retreats from managing wealth for U.S. clients. The deal would allow U.S. advisers and clients to move to San Francisco-based Wells Fargo by early 2016, the banks said.
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