Armada Funds, the $18.6 billion fund unit of National City Bank, is making a push to expand its third party distribution. The effort comes as the unit has finished absorbing an acquired bank's fund group and taking over distribution from an external vendor. The push involves both adding to its wholesale team and enhancing its Web site.

"You need the right funds, products and performance," explained Kathleen Barr, managing director of Armada Funds, "We believe we have these things in place now."

Barr kept Armada's wholesaling powder dry while the rest of the effort was built because of the high cost wholesaling incurs and the need for those efforts to be properly timed. In 2000 the firm was kept busy rolling the Parkstone Funds into its own lineup. More recently it was focused on moving distribution internally from SEI Distributors and implementing a new Advent portfolio system for the fund managers.

The initial push has been on building the wholesaling team.

The firm recently tapped David Plotkin to head its wholesaling team that serves financial consultants. He is on the West Coast and reports to Barr. His team is seeking an additional wholesaler to cover the Gulf States region which runs from Texas to Florida.

Another addition was the move of Maureen McLaughlin from another post within the bank to oversee the unit's internal wholesaling group. The internal wholesaling group under McLaughlin expects to add one more member.

Barr also has high hopes for the institutional wholesaling group headed by Pat Kennedy, which targets charitable foundations, endowments and retirement plans. The group recently added Tim Ponstingly and is seeking another member to cover the Michigan, Illinois and Indiana region.

The person-in-the-field efforts will be supplemented with ewholsaling features on the ArmadaFunds.com Web site. Barr expects those changes to be completed by the end of the first half of 2002. 

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