Shake-up in Barclays U.S. wealth management unit

Steve Houston, former BofA manager, replaces Jack Petersen; tasked with bulking up bank's high-net-worth biz

Barclays Wealth has replaced its head of wealth management in the Americas, the unit of Barclays PLC announced today.
Steve Houston, who joined Barclays in 2009 after 10 years at Merrill Lynch., is assuming the role, replacing Jack Petersen, a legacy Lehman Brothers employee who will become an adviser in Barclays’ New York office.
Barclays acquired Lehman’s Brothers Holdings Inc.’s North American operations in 2008 after the Wall Street firm’s parent went bust in the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history.
Mr. Houston, who held various sales and product development roles at Merrill, will now be responsible for building Barclays high-net-worth-client business, as well as hiring advisers. He is to report to Mitch Cox, head of Barclays Wealth Americas, and head of global research and investments for the whole firm.
“As part of a significant global investment in our business and platform, we are rapidly growing in the U.S. and attracting top-performing teams,” Mr. Cox said in a release. “With his track record, Steve is the right person to drive our regional build-out.”
Barclays has been expanding and hiring aggressively in the U.S. recently, with a target of adding about 100 advisers in the wealth management business this year. Executives at the company’s headquarters in the U.K. said in April that their goal is to be among the top three competitors in the wealth management business within four to five years.
Barclays plans to spend about $535 million over the next three years to develop its wealth management products and recruit advisers, mostly in the U.S. and Asia. Barclays will shell out about $153 million on that effort this year alone, Chris Lucas, group finance director, said in April.
This week, the firm announced that it has hired two more advisers for its Los Angeles office: Dana Jacobs and Alan Vorwald, both from HSBC Bank USA NA. And last month, the firm hired Gary Krieger, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. veteran, for its Palm Beach, Fla., office.