CHARLOTTE, N.C., May 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Wachovia Corporation
today announced that it has named John Papadopulos, age 49, President of the
Retirement and Investment Products Group (RIPG), one of three businesses
within the Capital Management Group. Papadopulos succeeds Robert Reid, who
recently was named head of the Real Estate Division within the Corporate and
Investment Bank. Papadopulos will report to David Carroll, head of the Capital
Management Group, and serve on the division's operating committee.
"John has had a long career focused on serving the unique needs of his
clients, has a strong track record of growing businesses and is very effective
at building partnerships across the broader company," Carroll said. "I am
pleased that John will be at the helm of this business. He has a mandate to
advance our efforts further into the consumer and institutional markets so
that Wachovia will ultimately be the retirement provider of choice."
Papadopulos has spent the past 12 years working in the firm's Corporate
and Investment Bank, in a series of senior management roles, most recently as
managing director within the Financial Institutions Group, leading the
investment banking team that covers insurance and banking clients. Prior to
this role, Papadopulos served four years as the managing director of
Institutional Investor Management. In this position, he served as chief
liaison to the top 50 global institutional investors that are trading partners
of Wachovia's Fixed Income and Equity groups. Before joining Wachovia, he
served as a managing director at Bankers Trust in New York and at Continental
Illinois Bank in Chicago.
In his new role, Papadopulos will oversee the firm's retirement business,
including its retail retirement business, which provides products, including
IRA and annuities, to Wachovia's distribution channels, which include Wachovia
Bank and Wachovia Securities; Wachovia Retirement Services, its defined
contribution and defined benefit recordkeeping business; and the reinsurance
business.
"Retirement - and saving for future needs - is one of the biggest issues
affecting Americans today. RIPG is a terrific business at Wachovia, and I am
very excited to be working with this team and all its partners to help create
solutions for our clients," added Papadopulos.
Retirement and Investments Products Group
The Retirement and Investment Products Group creates and makes available
an array of retirement solutions for retail and institutional clients across
the company. It includes the Retail Retirement Group, which is focused on the
sales growth of Wachovia's IRA and annuity products through the bank and
brokerage channels. At the end of 2007, with annual sales of $12.5 billion,
Wachovia ranked as the number one distributor of annuity products in the
United States. Since 2004, Wachovia's IRA assets under management have grown
at a combined annual growth rate of 13 percent and 2007 inflows topped $20
billion. At end of 2007, Wachovia ranked in the top 5 in IRA assets under
management in the U.S.(1) The business unit also includes Wachovia Retirement
Services, which provides recordkeeping, administration, education, investment
options and health savings account services to more than 2.2 million plan
participants with more than $105 billion in assets in more than 6,600
retirement plans. In 2007, Wachovia was rated as the second best provider for
client loyalty in the retirement industry by the annual Boston Research Group
survey. The Retirement and Investment Products Group also includes Wachovia's
Life and Annuity Reinsurance operations. The Reinsurance Group is one of the
leading U.S. reinsurers of retirement and annuity products, as well as, life
surplus relief transactions.
About Wachovia
Wachovia Corporation (NYSE: WB) is one of the nation's largest diversified
financial services companies, with assets of $808.9 billion and market
capitalization of $53.8 billion at March 31, 2008. Wachovia provides a broad
range of retail banking and brokerage, asset and wealth management, and
corporate and investment banking products and services to customers through
3,300 retail financial centers in 21 states from Connecticut to Florida and
west to Texas and California, and nationwide retail brokerage, mortgage
lending and auto finance businesses. Globally, clients are served in selected
corporate and institutional sectors and through more than 40 international
offices. Our retail brokerage operations under the Wachovia Securities brand
name manage more than $1.1 trillion in client assets through 18,600 registered
representatives in 1,500 offices nationwide.
(1) [4th quarter Claritas market share report]
SOURCE Wachovia Corporation
