- Merrill Lynch head Andy Sieg is leaving to lead rival Citi’s wealth management business.
- Two Merrill executives, including one just promoted to lead private wealth, are replacing Sieg.
- Challenges await Sieg at Citi and his successors at Merrill amid a competitive backdrop.
Bank of America said on Thursday that Andy Sieg, the president of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management who has steered the sprawling business at a time when it faces fierce competition from rival banks and independently run wealth firms to advise affluent customers, would step down.
Sieg is leaving for rival bank Citi, where he faces a big challenge when he starts in September: improving Citi’s wealth business, which has lagged behind competitors like Merrill and Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.
Two Merrill executives, Lindsay Hans and Eric Schimpf, will replace Sieg and report to Bank of America Chief Executive Brian Moynihan, the bank said in a press release. Hans was promoted to head of private wealth last month and joined the company in 2014 from UBS. Schimpf was previously a division executive and a co-head of the firm’s advisor development program, and he joined Merrill as a financial advisor in 1994.
A Bank of America spokesperson declined to specify who would replace Hans and Schimpf in their prior roles.
New battles await both Sieg at Citi, where he will be head of Citi Global Wealth, and his successors at Merrill. The landscape for wealth management has been competitive, with an array of large independent players, known as registered investment advisors, challenging the banks with the largest financial advisor forces: Merrill, Morgan Stanley, UBS, and Wells Fargo. The industry as a whole is trying to position itself to capitalize on a tremendous transfer of wealth between generations.
“The pace of change is rapid. The wealth transfer is not a future phenomenon, it’s here now,” Hans said in an interview about women in wealth management with RIA Intel this month, prior to her appointment to Merrill president. “I’m excited about the opportunity to lead this particular business against that backdrop.”
A tough job ahead at Citi
Sieg is not the first Merrill executive that Citi has hired in recent years as it’s sought to expand its wealth management arm.
In 2020 Citi hired David Poole from Merrill, where he had overseen the firm’s online brokerage and hybrid investing service, to head up consumer wealth management in the US.
Sieg is now replacing Jim O’Donnell, who stepped down from the post in January after less than two years in the role. The move was made after the wealth business had missed revenue targets, the Wall Street Journal reported. Citi CEO Jane Fraser described the wealth management unit’s performance as “disappointing” on a call to discuss earnings in January.
“Growing wealth is a core pillar of our strategy and will improve our business mix by adding more fee-based revenue and drive improved returns,” Fraser said in a memo to employees on Thursday that Insider viewed. “In my conversations with Andy, it is clear to him that our team is on a mission to transform Citi — and he is highly driven and motivated to play a central role in our firm’s leadership.”
Hans and Schimpf are taking over Merrill at a time when it is starting to recruit experienced advisors with big books of business again after years of focusing on training new advisors internally. In recent years Merrill’s rivals like UBS, Morgan Stanley, and Rockefeller Capital Management, run by former Merrill president and chief operating oficer Greg Fleming, have poached advisors from Merrill as demand for wealth services rises.
Before his career in financial services, Schimpf served in the military. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point and was an infantry officer in the army before he joined Merrill.
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