Wells Fargo has appointed Lisa Featherngill as managing director of planning for Abbot Downing, the firm’s new dedicated business for high net worth clients with $50 million or more in assets, due to launch in April.

Wells Fargo has appointed Lisa Featherngill as managing director of planning for Abbot Downing, the firm’s dedicated business for high net worth clients with $50 million or more in assets, which is due to launch in April.

The new unit integrates two of Wells Fargo’s existing businesses - Wells Fargo Family Wealth and Lowry Hill - under the rebranded name of Abbot Downing, led by James Steiner who was appointed as president last year.

As managing director of planning, Featherngill and her team will focus on traditional wealth planning such as cash flow, investments and wealth transfer, the firm said. 

In her new role, Featherngill will continue to be based in Winston-Salem, NC, reporting to Anthony McEahern, who is head of wealth planning.

“They [Featherngill and her team] will also partner closely with our family dynamics team to deliver on more qualitative issues such as legacy planning, family governance, decision making and family wealth education,” McEahern said in a statement.

Since joining Wells Fargo, Featherngill has served as director of wealth planning for the firm’s Carolinas and Mid-Atlantic offices. Previously, she worked at First Union in 1996 as regional managing director for the wealth management financial planning group. Before that, she was at Arthur Andersen for 11 years.

Following its launch in April, Abbot Downing will have combined assets of approximately $27.5 billion, with about 575 client-families, making it the fourth-largest family office business after HSBC’s private wealth solutions business, Bessemer Trust Co, and UBS’s wealth management business, according to Bloomberg data.

In other recent developments, Wells Fargo recruited seven financial advisors from UBS and Morgan Stanley Smith Barney last month, bolstering three of its financial advisory teams.