Rosenberg Will Leave Seafirst to Join B of A

Richard M. Rosenberg, a well-traveled West Coast banking executive, is leaving the No. 2 job at Seattle’s Seafirst Corp. to become vice chairman of BankAmerica and head of its crucial California banking system, BankAmerica announced Monday.

Seafirst is the Seattle bank that BankAmerica acquired in 1983 after Seafirst nearly failed as a result of bad energy loans made before Rosenberg joined the bank. It recently has returned to profitability under Chairman Richard P. Cooley, who will temporarily assume Rosenberg’s former duties.

Rosenberg becomes one of four vice chairmen at BankAmerica--but the only one with a seat on the bank holding company’s board of directors. He also will sit on the boards of Seafirst and Bank of America, the chief subsidiaries of BankAmerica.

The move puts the 56-year-old Rosenberg in position to take a run at BankAmerica’s chairmanship when A. W. Clausen, 64, retires, perhaps as early as next year. BankAmerica does not have a mandatory retirement age, but it is customary for executives of the San Francisco-based banking company to step down at age 65.

Rosenberg’s chief rival is widely considered to be Thomas A. Cooper, who is president and chief operating officer of BankAmerica and Bank of America. Cooper also sits on the boards of both entities and is a member of the holding company’s executive committee.

Before moving to Seafirst in 1985, Rosenberg was briefly vice chairman of Crocker National Corp. Previously, he spent 22 years at Wells Fargo & Co., rising to the post of vice chairman.

Rosenberg will have responsibility for BankAmerica’s banking activities in California and will report directly to Clausen. He will serve on the bank’s managing committee and on its loan policy committee.

BankAmerica’s California banking operations are the heart of the nation’s second-largest banking firm, with 895 branches and more than 35,000 employees.

Rosenberg said he left Seafirst because “it is just very hard to pass up the opportunity and challenge of running the nation’s largest consumer and middle-market banking operation. Surely there have been problems (at BankAmerica), but California is just the most exciting market in the world.” He said he had no doubts that BankAmerica would survive and prosper as an independent banking firm. The company lost $855 million during the past two years and recently repelled an unwelcome takeover attempt by Los Angeles-based First Interstate Bancorp.

“It’s clearly a vote of confidence on my part. I would not be going down there if I had any doubts about that at all,” Rosenberg said in a telephone interview Monday from his office in Seattle.

Clausen said: “Dick Rosenberg is a highly regarded and thoroughly proven executive whose innovative and successful marketing programs were a key factor at Wells Fargo while he served that organization, and most recently, in the resurgence of Seafirst.

“He is experienced in every aspect of retail banking and will bring the leadership and day-to-day senior management strength necessary to accelerate the renaissance of our California banking operations.”