ST. LOUIS (AP) -- The financial services firm Wells Fargo Advisors is expanding its St. Louis office and plans to create 400 jobs in the city, company leaders said Friday.
Wells Fargo is the nation's third-largest retail brokerage firm. Plans call for spending $33 million to renovate and expand its downtown St. Louis headquarters. The jobs will be created over a three-year period.
"The jobs we are bringing to St. Louis will enhance our company's capacity to serve clients nationally," Danny Ludeman, president and chief executive officer of Wells Fargo Advisors, said at a news conference. "These new jobs also reinforce the position St. Louis holds as home to one of the largest concentrations of financial services talent outside of New York."
Ludeman told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in an interview that the 400 jobs will come from consolidating employees from several other cities, including Minneapolis, as well as adding new positions. The newspaper said the average salary for Wells Fargo jobs nationally is $59,192, though the St. Louis average is $53,547.
The company is getting help from the state in the form of an economic incentive package worth $12.6 million in tax credits. The state also is providing $540,000 in New Jobs Training incentives.
"Wells Fargo Advisors is one of the most respected and recognized brands in the financial service industry, and we are pleased that the company will to continue to grow in St. Louis and deepen its investment in Missouri," Gov. Jay Nixon said.
St. Louis has lost many corporate headquarters to consolidation over the past decade-and-a-half, firms like McDonnell Douglas, Trans World Airlines and May Department Stores Co. But the region remains a major player in financial firms.
Edward Jones, based in St. Louis, has said it hopes to increase its number of financial advisers in North America to 20,000 by the end of 2020. The firm currently has 12,000 financial advisers in the continent. Stifel Financial is also expanding, planning to increase jobs at its downtown headquarters to 1,000 from 800.
