PEOPLE : CalFed President Receives Promotion to Chairman

Jerry A. St. Dennis, CalFed Inc.’s president and chief operating officer, has been named chairman and chief executive.

The move by the nation’s third-largest thrift was expected. St. Dennis, 47, has been running CalFed, the Los Angeles-based parent of California Federal Bank, since John R. Torell III was asked to resign as chief executive last July in a falling out with the thrift’s directors.

In naming St. Dennis chief executive, CalFed’s directors are choosing a company insider in contrast to Torell, a New York banker recruited from Manufacturers Hanover. Analysts said CalFed directors are obviously happy with the way St. Dennis has led CalFed in the interim and also want to avoid a repeat of the sharp personality clashes they had with Torell, who alienated directors and executives with an impatient and often abrasive style.

Torell headed CalFed less than a year and was a key figure in merger talks with GlenFed Inc. that ultimately collapsed. Torell on Thursday declined to specify what he is doing, other than to say he is not affiliated with any company now. He is maintaining offices in New York and Los Angeles. Bank industry executives said they believe that he is working in investment banking.

A soft-spoken economist, St. Dennis has been shrinking CalFed the past seven months in an effort to bolster its capital in the wake of last year’s federal thrift bailout legislation. The new laws require all savings and loans to maintain stronger levels of capital, which is the financial safety net protecting against losses.

Since St. Dennis took over, CalFed has sold its Wilshire Boulevard headquarters building for what sources familiar with the transaction said was $45 million. It sold its $125-million credit card portfolio, divested itself of an insurance subsidiary in London for $110 million and has laid off 157 employees since the start of the year. CalFed had $26.2 billion in assets on Dec. 31.

St. Dennis will keep the title of president. Director Arthur W. Schmutz had served as chairman while a special office of the chairman, made up of directors Howard P. Allen, Richard Lawton and Schmutz, temporarily oversaw CalFed’s operations.

St. Dennis attended UCLA as an undergraduate and graduate, earning his masters in business administration. He joined CalFed in 1981 and has held such positions as chief economist and chief financial officer. He previously was vice president of research for Claremont Economics Institute, taught economics and worked as a government economist.

Separately, Richard M. Greenwood, 42, was named CalFed’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, filling a post that had been held last by St. Dennis. Greenwood previously was chief financial officer of Valley National Corp. in Phoenix.