Poaching talent seen critical to private banking

BOSTON (Reuters) - Large U.S. banks are poised to win at least one battle in the private banking war because they can afford to pay higher compensation to poach relationship managers considered critical to keeping picky, wealthy clients happy.

"Somebody who is good in this space is highly sought after," John Stadtler, a partner at Pricewaterhouse Coopers, told the Reuters Wealth Management Summit in Boston on Tuesday. "Some of the poaching may involve getting people who are looking to move up the ranks."

PwC polled hundreds of wealth managers and issued a report this summer that found the war for talented relationship managers will likely intensify.

So far these professionals, who offer wealthy clients services from investment advice, to tax planning, to an entree to exclusive clubs and ways to handle more mundane tasks like walking the dog, have not hit the rock-star status bestowed on investment bankers or hedge fund managers.

But as ever more Americans join the ranks of the ultra wealthy with $50 million or more to invest, relationship managers might soon move into those leagues, Stadtler said.

No matter how good the company's brand, "it is the individual who delivers the firm and they are in high demand," Stadtler said, noting that salaries are rising quickly and that companies are using bigger bonuses to woo and keep managers.

Part of the problem may be that the pool of qualified relationship managers is not large and it is tough to train them quickly in house, Stadtler explained.

Indeed only about one fifth of polled chief executives told PwC they believe their organizations are good at attracting and retaining the best client relationship managers.

The CEOs gave only middling marks to most of the people who manage relationships with the rich, telling PwC that only about 17 percent of these managers have a "very high ability."

Indeed only about 39 percent of the respondents feel that enough money is being spent on making sure that employees are trained properly to do their jobs well.

"This is a business where you are learning with the smaller people and top quality people probably don't move as quickly as they would like to," Stadtler said.

This raises the stakes for everyone, PwC found, and more than two-thirds of the companies polled said they are interested in poaching talent from rivals.

As just one example, Bank of America (BAC.N), already one of the top players in the U.S. market but eager to build its wealth management division aggressively in the years ahead, recently wooed an executive from Fidelity Investments to run its retirement services unit.