NEW YORK (Bloomberg) — Wachovia Corp., the fourth-biggest US bank, plans to more than double its private-banking staff in the next three years as part of a strategy to sell more products to wealthy customers.The bank will target fast-growing markets including Florida, Texas, California and New York in adding about 300 private bankers to the 240 it has now, Wachovia said in a statement. Morrison Creech, based at the bank's headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina, was named to the newly created role of managing executive of private banking.

Wachovia, the fifth-largest US manager of private wealth, is aiming at leaders Merrill Lynch & Co. and Citigroup Inc. by pursuing young affluent clients who have such needs as second homes and investment advice. The bank in April moved the private-advisory unit in its retail and small-business bank to the wealth-management arm, and on January 1 will lift the ceiling for new clients to $5 million in assets to invest from $2 million.

"Affluent clients have a huge amount of credit and banking needs," Creech, 50, said in an interview. By reorganising and raising the asset threshold, "we can more easily grow along with them and help them accumulate assets and build their wealth," he said.

By contrast, those with more than $5 million in assets are "mainly looking to preserve their wealth" and have more complex financial needs involving trusts and insurance issues, he said.

Creech joined the bank in 2003 and was formerly managing executive of credit and deposit services in the bank's wealth-management group. He will report to Stanhope Kelly, president of wealth management. Kelly's division had $65 million in earnings in the first quarter, or about 3 percent of the company's total income of $2.3 billion.

It's "certainly our strategy" to increase wealth management's role at the company, Creech said, without providing a forecast. Much of the benefit private bankers provide is in giving referrals to other parts of the bank, such as its brokerage division, he said.

That unit, Wachovia Securities, is set to become the second-largest US brokerage firm after Merrill Lynch by financial advisers when it adds A.G. Edwards Inc. later this year. Last week, Wachovia agreed to buy the 120-year-old securities firm for $6.8 billion.

The number of households with $250,000 to $5 million in assets to invest is forecast to grow 30 percent to 18 million by 2010 from 14 million in 2005, Wachovia said. Those with assets exceeding $5 million will continue to be served by Wachovia Wealth Management, while its Calibre group will cater to those with more than $50 million in assets.