Ex-Senator Mathias to Head First American Bankshares

Former Sen. Charles Mathias was named chairman of First American Bankshares Inc. on Tuesday in a shake-up of the company’s officers.

Mathias, a Maryland Republican, replaces Nicholas Katzenbach, a former U.S. attorney general who succeeded former Chairman Clark Clifford when he resigned in August after charges stemming from the BCCI scandal.

First American Executive Vice President Paul G. Adams III was named president and chief executive. He succeeds George L. Davis.

“The decision of the board in selecting the chairman and the new president has been fully discussed with me and approved by me,” Harry W. Albright, First American’s court-appointed trustee, said in a statement released late Tuesday.

Albright was appointed in May as part of a move to sell the bank and sever its ties to the scandal-plagued Bank of Credit & Commerce International.

First American had been secretly owned by BCCI, which pleaded guilty to federal racketeering earlier this year and agreed to forfeit a record $550 million in U.S. assets.