Wells Fargo plans to hire investment bankers

By Dan Freed

(Reuters) - Wells Fargo & Co is looking to make selective hires in investment banking while it has pared back in another group in its securities division.

The bank would like to add a few investment bankers in equities underwriting, as well as others who call on technology and healthcare sector companies, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Wells Fargo has roughly 70 investment bankers covering the technology sector, with roughly 30 on the West Coast and 40 on the East Coast. The size of the healthcare and equities businesses could not be determined.

Separately, the bank recently laid off seven people based in Charlotte, North Carolina who worked in the asset backed finance division, according to a separate source.

Both asset backed finance and investment banking are part of Wells Fargo Securities, which in turn is part of Wells Fargo’s wholesale banking business. Wholesale banking had 36,000 employees and accounted for 28 percent of company-wide revenues in 2014.

Wells Fargo is a relatively small player in investment banking compared to other U.S. banking giants JPMorgan Chase & Co , Citigroup Inc and Bank of America Corp.

Investment banking accounted for $1.8 billion in revenues in 2014, or 7.6 percent of the $23.5 billion in wholesale banking revenues. Those figures have grown since 2012, when investment banking revenues were $1.34 billion, or 5.6 percent of $24.1 billion in wholesale banking revenues at Wells Fargo.

(Reporting by Dan Freed; Editing by Frances Kerry)

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