PNC battling to keep NatCity’s private banking business

PNC Financial is still digesting its $5.6 billion acquisition of National City Corp., but a quiet battle almost certainly
is under way over its lucrative private banking clients.

Pittsburgh-based PNC says it’s premature to discuss how it plans to retain the wealth management
clients until the changeover is complete next summer.

However, it’s a safe bet that PNC is thinking hard about how to keep them from jumping
to competing firms, and just as safe a bet that rivals are looking to lure them away.

“The key to either getting someone else’s business or retaining your own is to get the confidence
of the client and become the trusted adviser,” said Lawrence A. O’Connor Jr., executive director
of the Butler Business Accelerator and president of the former Bank One Indiana before it was purchased by New York-based
JP Morgan Chase & Co. in 2004. “If you don’t do that, somebody will.”

PNC snapped up Cleveland-based National City a year ago after it became bogged down in the subprime mortgage
crisis.

When the merger was announced, National City was the second-largest bank in the
Indianapolis area, based on employment; it was fourth-largest by number of branch locations and fifth-largest
by deposits. Seventy-seven of the 172 branches National City operated in Indiana are in the Indianapolis
area.

Indianapolis figures aren’t available for PNC’s
private banking activity. However, private banking generated $35 million for the merged
bank in the third quarter. All told, private banking churned out 4.8 percent of PNC revenue but a healthy
6.3 percent of its profit.

Management of investment and retirement accounts as well as estate and general tax planning issues
are just a few of the services that fall under the private-banking umbrella.

Private clients are lucrative because they demand additional services that generate
higher fees. Those fees are prized by banks as they look for profits at a time they’ve
tightened lending in light of the credit crunch.

PNC spokesman Alan Aldinger said “appropriate changes and enhancements” likely will
be introduced before summer—just before changing the names in Indianapolis.

It is “too early, really, to go into detail about plans for our clients,” Aldinger said in an e-mail.
“As of now, National City Private Client Group in Indianapolis is status quo.”

It’s when the name is changed that clients would be most likely to walk away, said George Farra,
a chartered financial analyst and principal with locally based Woodley Farra Manion Portfolio Management
Inc.

National City’s private-banking arm likely emerged unscathed, said Nadine Givens, director of the
local office of BKD Wealth Advisors LLC, a subsidiary of the Springfield, Mo.-based accounting firm BKD
LLP. Actually, any lingering doubt about National City could be buffered by PNC’s financial stability.

“In uncertain times, [clients] will leave,” said Givens, a former market manager for JP Morgan’s
private wealth management group. However, she added that National City’s wealth management business was
“as good as it gets.”

Michael Bosway, CEO of locally based City Securities Corp., suggested a bank’s troubles can overshadow
its talent, especially in troubled times. Some clients might question the stability of National City,
and ultimately PNC, due to the bad news about subprime mortgages.

“If there are issues that are well-publicized that are going on at the company, then that company
better get its act together, because clients are going to think twice about staying,” Bosway said.

To prevent a massive customer exodus, some experts argue the best move—or perhaps non-move—PNC
can make is to keep its current crop of advisers. That’s because relationships that advisers build
with customers often serve as a barometer for an institution’s success.

“It’s a me-too industry,” said Mark Damer, president of the wealth management division
at the local office of Chicago-based David A. Noyes & Co. “What really differentiates this
business anymore are the people involved, and the clients tend to become very loyal and attached to that
individual.”

To be sure, loyalty can reap additional clients who may be drawn to a particular
bank or firm by testimonials from peers. Business typically is built by “word-of-mouth” advertising,
said Damer, who has had customers follow him from previous jobs at other investment firms.

Any business welcomes a referral. But private client referrals carry much more clout, said
BKD’s Givens: “They’re your leaders in the community. They’re the influential,
the who’s-who in Indianapolis.”

Damer admitted he will be “anxiously watching” to see what initiatives
PNC pursues to embrace existing clients, as well as to entice new ones.

“It’s a competitive place,” he said. “We’re all trying to do the same thing.”
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IBJ reporter Peter Schnitzler contributed to this story.