Bank of America Merrill Lynch named three executives on Tuesday to run its $450 billion retirement services business, including rehiring a former executive who left earlier this year.

The move is the second major leadership change within the retirement division in the last three months. Sallie Krawcheck, head of the bank's global wealth and investment management division, poached Citi colleague Andy Sieg, in September to run the retirement business.

Krawcheck, a former senior Citigroup Inc and Smith Barney executive, at that time said the bank would be more aggressive in courting retirement clients.

The expectation is that this can be a growth engine for the bank, Sieg, head of retirement and philanthropic services for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, told Reuters in an interview Tuesday.

The division is responsible for managing and advising clients within one of the largest U.S. retirement portfolios, covering everything from individual customers' 401(k) plans to Fortune 500 companies' massive corporate retirement programs.

The only outside hire in the leadership restructuring is David Roberts to oversee the company's equity plan services unit. Roberts left Merrill Lynch in April as part of a broader wave of departures in the early months following the takeover by Bank of America, but he did not join another firm.

He rejoins the bank as head of the unit, which advises corporate clients on equity compensation and other deferred pay plans. Roberts initially joined Merrill Lynch in 2006, when he sold his Scottsdale, Arizona-based company, Equity Methods Inc, to the firm, which focused on the same equity plan advice.

The two remaining appointments were promotions of two existing retirement division executives.

Kevin Crain, formerly head of plan participant solutions, will now run the firm's recruitment and management of institutional retirement clients.

Crain's unit, known as institutional client relationships, combines what were once two distinct operations - recruitment and retention.

Aimee DeCamillo, head of personal retirement solutions, will now manage a business whose mandate includes the personal retirement solutions business, with the added responsibility of overseeing plan participant programs.

Sieg said the moves were made now to prepare for the growth expected within the unit in 2010, though he declined to give specific figures, and to continue the Merrill Lynch and Bank of America integration.

Each retirement management division, he said, will work more closely with other divisions within the broader bank.

(Reporting by Joe Rauch; Editing by Dave Zimmerman and Tim Dobbyn)

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