Columbia S&L; Names Banker CEO

Columbia Savings & Loan in Beverly Hills has hired Lawrence K. Fish, a 43-year-old commercial banker from Boston, as president and chief operating officer, the company said Thursday.

Fish, executive vice president of the Bank of Boston, will be the right-hand man for Thomas Spiegel, 41, who remains Columbia’s chief executive but is giving up the title of president. Spiegel’s octogenarian father, Abraham, remains chairman.

“The company needs a No. 2 man, someone who can manage the day-to-day details,” Fish said in a telephone interview from his offices in Boston. He is starting his new job in two weeks.

Fish was passed over last year for the post of bank vice chairman, though he denied that that had anything to do with his departure. The Bank of Boston has $34 billion in assets--three times what Columbia has--making it New England’s largest commercial bank.

Columbia advertises itself as the best-run savings and loan firm in the country. Its earnings in recent years have been among the largest in the thrift industry, though its assets are less than half those of its biggest competitors.

But Columbia’s reputation received a kick in the shins when it lost $34.8 million in the fourth quarter of 1987, due largely to heavy losses in the stock market. Columbia is one of the few thrifts that invest heavily in equity securities and is a major investor in the “junk bond” market.

Spiegel said the move to hire Fish is unrelated to Columbia’s losses, pointing out that he has been looking for a president for more than a year. Rather, Spiegel said, the move is part of a corporate review that will put the entire firm under scrutiny.

“We are going to re-examine every aspect of this business,” said Spiegel, who said he thinks that Columbia in the future will be primarily known as a commercial and merchant banking company, rather than as a savings and loan.

Columbia’s credentials as an S&L; are already somewhat suspect. Only a minor portion of its assets are in mortgage loans, the traditional staple of the thrift industry.

Fish, raised in the affluent Chicago suburb of Winnetka, is a graduate of Drake University in Iowa and the Harvard Business School. He is married and has three children.

He spent 16 years with the Bank of Boston, including stints in Brazil, Japan and Hong Kong, and most recently headed its consumer and middle-market lending activities in New England. He was recently named to the board of directors.

“We’re going to hate to lose him,” a bank spokesman said.