Downey S&L; Chief to Retire; New CEO Hired
Downey Savings & Loan co-founder Maurice L. McAlister said Friday that he will retire within a year as president of the thrift. He also said longtime banker Robert L. Kemper has been hired as Downey’s chief executive and will help pull together the S&L;’s next generation of leaders.
McAlister, 65, had said last spring that he planned to continue working for several more years. But he said Friday that he has decided to leave in six months to a year.
“We have a new home in Arizona, and my wife said it’s time to stop working and (to) have fun,” McAlister said. “I agree with her.”
He said he plans to remain chairman of the 34-year-old Newport Beach-based thrift, however.
Kemper, a former Wells Fargo vice chairman, resigned Friday as chairman of Great American Bank in San Diego.
At Downey, he will fill the post vacated by the July 31 retirement of Gerald H. McQuarrie, Downey’s other founder. Kemper, who starts Sept. 23, is also expected to be elected to a newly created seat on the thrift’s board, McAlister said.
His appointment at Downey could also go a long way toward improving relations between Downey executives and federal regulators. The two groups have come to loggerheads over issues in audits in each of the past three years.
The latest came last month when the S&L;, pressured by regulators, said it would take a $32.4-million charge against third-quarter earnings, wiping out its profit for the first six months of 1991.
McAlister said he does not believe that his thrift has been fighting with regulators. “But that doesn’t mean we like what they do,” he said.
Michael Patriarca, regional director in San Francisco of the Office of Thrift Supervision, would not comment on any rift.
But he praised the appointment of Kemper, who was brought in to head troubled Great American Bank last October. OTS seized the San Diego thrift last month.
“He’s a very able manager,” Patriarca said. “He’s a good guy to build a management team. I’m very high on Bob Kemper, and I’m very happy to have him in another thrift institution in my region.”
Kemper spent 27 years at Wells Fargo, rising to the post of vice chairman. He left in 1983 and worked at several financial-services companies before taking over troubled Great American in July, 1990.
Patriarca said Kemper did a good job at Great American and kept regulators informed without relying on them to make his decisions. “He’s a very careful and thorough guy with a real sense of perspective,” Patriarca said. “He really knows how a financial institution operates.”
Downey also has “needed someone else” to help manage the big thrift, said James F. Wilson, an analyst at Montgomery Securities in San Francisco. He said McAlister has been spending most of his time selling the thrift’s substantial real estate interests, an action required under the 1989 federal law that restructured the thrift industry.
The S&L;, with $4.1 billion in assets, will continue with its corporate restructuring and hire more top executives. The board of directors is “committed to reshaping Downey Savings for the future,” McAlister said.
Once the reorganization is complete, Downey will have enough top talent to pick a successor to Kemper, who is a “very young 62,” McAlister said.
Downey began its reorganization this summer by creating the posts of chairman and vice chairman, giving them to McAlister and McQuarrie, respectively, and hiring David T. Hansen in the newly created position of chief financial officer.
The restructuring is aimed not only at reshaping Downey--which already has a reputation for being one of the best-managed thrifts in the nation--but at bringing its management system more in line with current concepts.
