July 10, 2006

BANKING & FINANCE: Wells Fargo office in Marin likely for wealth management

BY Lindsay Riddell
STAFF REPORTER
 
CORTE MADERA – San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. will open a new office in Corte Madera, most likely to expand its private client services and investment management for high-net-worth individuals.

Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) signed an eight-year lease for 12,584 square feet at 770 Tamalpais Drive in a large office building adjacent to Corte Madera Town Center and across the street from a Tamalpais Bank branch.

A spokesman for Wells Fargo said Corte Madera was an area in which the company was focused on growing, though he said he couldn't confirm the new office's use.

"Corte Madera is a growth area for Wells Fargo, and a lot of team members work and live in the area," said Chris Hammond, a communications manager for Wells Fargo. "It could be a natural move to expand there."

Sources outside of the company said Wells had been searching for a location to put its wealth management services and planned to move from a temporary location at its San Rafael branch.

Wells Fargo, the country's fifth-largest financial institution, has 71 private client services offices offering money- and investment-management services to clients with a net worth of more than $1 million, according to the Wells Fargo Web site.

Wells Fargo is a diversified financial services company providing banking, insurance, investments, mortgage and consumer finance for more than 23 million customers in 6,200 stores and on the Internet worldwide. The company has 888 bank branches in California, including 30 in the North Bay.

Large financial institutions are increasingly moving into private wealth management, competing for customers of Charles Schwab and Merrill Lynch. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that some financial services companies are opening offices targeting the super-rich – those with $10 million to $50 million to invest – because of the hefty fees they can collect for managing such large amounts of wealth.

The wealth management field in Marin County is becoming increasingly crowded. Epic Wealth Management, a subsidiary of Epic Bancorp (NASDAQ:EPIK), which owns Tamalpais Bank, already has seven wealth management offices at each Tamalpais Bank branch in Marin County.

Epic Wealth CEO Loral Good, recently hired away from Wells Fargo, said two more Epic Wealth offices were in the works, and Epic was looking to expand its customer offerings.

Wells Fargo's move into the county should be expected, she said. Because real estate is so expensive, most residents who own homes in Marin County tend to have the kind of wealth attractive to wealth management companies, Ms. Good said.

"It is a wonderful source of potential business around this area," Ms. Good said. "People are getting older, and we're looking in the next 30 years at an enormous turnover of wealth."

Brian Eisberg, an agent for Orion Partners who found the high-end, executive office for Wells Fargo, said office space is becoming hard to find in that area.

"The southern Marin market is tightening up significantly," Mr. Eisberg said.

"Demand has gone up and vacancy has gone down ... It's tight from Larkspur Landing south," with northern Marin to follow, he said.

Wells Fargo can move its office into the building in January.