Wooing the Wealthy with Family Histories

History (see post below) has more marketing sizzle for wealth managers than you might think. The Saturday Wall Street Journal (Rupert Murdoch's favorite publication) tells how Well Fargo's company historian became a valued marketing tool for the Private Bank:

Private banking, long the bailiwick of trust banks or blue-blood institutions like J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., has recently become a fiercer battleground. Trillions of dollars in personal fortunes are expected to be transferred in the next 50 years as baby boomers pass their wealth to the next generation.

Competitors are going to extremes to win the right to manage these funds. U.S. Trust has treated current and prospective clients to events with Colin Powell and Rudolph Giuliani, and last month the New York-based wealth-management firm invited 50 guests to a dinner and concert by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Chicago-based Northern Trust Corp. has entertained big clients at spring training baseball games and has organized displays of its clients' art work.

Wells Fargo deploys Dr. [Andy] Anderson. The fourth-largest U.S. bank by market value, it ranked 12th among U.S. wealth managers in 2006, according to Barron's, with $125 billion in private assets under management. The bank's wealth-management businesses -- including investments, brokerage and private banking for clients with at least $1 million in balances at Wells Fargo -- contribute 16% of its profit. Wells Fargo wants to boost that to 25%.

Dr. Anderson, 60 years old, has a Ph.D. in history from Ohio State. After joining Wells Fargo in 1977, he helped organize the archives of the bank, which was founded in 1852 to offer mail delivery, transportation and banking in the burgeoning West. Dr. Anderson also helped create several of the bank's nine Wells Fargo museums.

In February 2003, Dr. Anderson gave a presentation on the company's history to 200 wealthy bank clients at a ski competition in Colorado. Afterward, audience members asked the historian how to research their own families.

Dr. Anderson concluded that rich families were hungry for details of their history -- often not so they could brag, but to impress upon their descendants that family wealth often came with sacrifice: "They want to hear about how hard it was."

Soon the bank began asking regional wealth managers to identify current and prospective clients to invite to family-heritage gatherings.