Huntington Bank Opens New Family Office, Providing Wealth Management Services

COLUMBUS, Ohio, April 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Huntington National Bank announces the opening of the Huntington Family Office in the Columbus market, which is a continuation of the company's expansion strategy for its investment services announced in 2009. This new office, located within the company's headquarters at 41 S. High Street, brings together a team of highly experienced financial planners, investment managers, trust officers, private bankers, charitable foundation experts, and estate-planning attorneys to assist high-net-worth individuals and families with managing and preserving wealth.

The Huntington Family Office offers convenient and integrated coordination of investment management, private banking, financial planning, trust and fiduciary services, charitable interests, insurance, tax planning and estate settlement services.

Senior Vice President Herb Chen, who will serve as director of the Huntington Family Office, said the new approach is designed to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of financial management for each client by eliminating the need to consult a complicating number of independent advisors.

"In too many instances, busy and successful people exhaust significant time and effort meeting with individual advisors, coordinating on-going communication among these advisors, and reconciling potentially conflicting counsel," Chen said. "At the Huntington Family Office, clients meet with an expert team of advisors who offer independent, objective advice designed to achieve the client's goals and wishes in the near term, long term, and from generation to generation. The family's continued financial success is our common and only goal."

Chen said this approach is ideal for those involved in potentially complicated business transactions and life events such as:

• Selling a business that generates liquid assets and creates tax implications.
• Retiring from a public company with large holdings of company stock.
• Preparing to take a privately owned company public.
• Desiring to diversify investments into non-traditional assets such as private equity, hedge funds and real estate.
• Inheriting wealth or planning to distribute wealth to heirs.
• Signing a long-term athletic contract that requires creation of asset management, investment and estate planning strategies.

Chen has more than 20 years of investment experience and holds a Master's degree in Business Administration from New York University's Stern School of Business, as well as Bachelor of Science degrees in finance and information systems from Carnegie Mellon University.

The Huntington Family Office team includes:

• Herb Chen, Huntington Family Office Region Manager and Senior Investment Manager
• Sandra Blanton, Estate Settlement Officer
• Donna Buckley, Senior Charitable Endowments and Foundations Officer
• Adonis Caneris, Senior Financial Planner
• Brenda Dean, Senior Trust Officer
• Kathy Houck, Senior Private Banker
• Lisa Lynch, Charitable Endowments and Foundations Officer
• Jennifer Parker Jefferies, Senior Financial Planner

Huntington plans to expand the Huntington Family Office into other Ohio markets in the near future.

About Huntington

Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (Nasdaq: HBAN) is a $52 billion regional bank holding company headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. Through its affiliated companies, Huntington has been providing a full range of financial services including checking, loans, savings, insurance and investment services to customers for 144 years. Huntington has more than 600 banking offices. Huntington also offers retail and commercial financial services online at huntington.com; through its telephone bank; and through its network of over 1,300 ATMs.

SOURCE Huntington National Bank