The new year brought with it the union of Wells Fargo Funds Management and Evergreen Investments' broker-dealers. Cara Peck, executive vice president and head of intermediary sales at Wells Fargo Funds Management, told The MFWire on the sidelines of the NICSA conference on Tuesday that the two b-ds merged on January 1.

The merger comes a year after Wells Fargo purchased all of Wachovia Corp., Evergreen's parent.

Peck took part in a panel discussion Tuesday morning entitled "Providing Effective Sales & Marketing Support." Invesco Aim Distributors president and CEO John Cooper, himself experiencing a merger with Invesco's purchase of Morgan Stanley's retail asset management business set to close this spring, was also on the panel moderated by Horsesmouth CEO William Nicklin.

Wells Fargo restructured into two teams -- one focusing on national B-Ds and the other focusing on independents and regionals, Peck said. Wells Fargo has 58 people in the field, two sales desks, 38 internals, five divisional sales managers, a national sales manager and 17 people in national accounts.

Come summer, the sales force will be pitching a consolidated fund menu. Wells Fargo last month unveiled plans for fund mergers, reorganizations and liquidations that will result in the Wells Fargo Advantage Funds family having 128 mutual funds, variable trust funds and Wells Fargo Managed Account CoreBuilder Shares.

As for Invesco (not yet including the impact of the Morgan Stanley deal), the firm currently counts 45 generalist wholesalers, nine retirement wholesalers, seven insurance wholesalers, nine on the national accounts team, five on the institutional business development group, 12 PowerShares distribution specialists and another 12 in the cash business.

"Our big focus is getting integration right," Cooper said. 

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