Ahmanson Quickly Fills Its No. 2 Post
As part of its crash program to transform itself into a full-service bank, the parent company of Home Savings of America on Wednesday named Bruce G. Willison, former vice chairman of First Interstate Bancorp, as its president and chief operating officer.
Willison’s hiring follows the abrupt departure last week of Fredric J. Forster, the previous second-ranking executive at Irwindale-based H.F. Ahmanson & Co., the parent firm. Forster resigned over what analysts said was a dispute over how fast and how far the nation’s largest savings and loan should veer away from its traditional mainstay of mortgage lending.
It is a survival issue for Ahmanson and other large savings and loan companies, which find themselves undercut by such mortgage lenders as Countrywide Credit Industries and Norwest Mortgage. These cut-rate rivals have pared the cost of originating a home loan to as low as $1,000, half what it costs the thrifts.
The industry newspaper American Banker noted last week that for the first time in its annual survey of the top 100 mortgage originators, no savings and loan made the top 10 (Home Savings was No. 16).
“Ahmanson is making a very bold move,” said Bob Rollo, a Los Angeles-based bank headhunter. “It is symbolic of what Ahmanson is trying to do that Fred is leaving and Bruce is coming in.”
Willison, 47, was credited with helping to rescue First Interstate in the late 1980s by instituting rigorous controls over its commercial lending.
His mandate at Ahmanson is no less daunting: to quickly make the $50-billion-asset thrift competitive in small-business and consumer lending, areas where it has slight experience yet must compete head-to-head with BankAmerica Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and other commercial bank behemoths.
“The question that has to be raised about Home is that given their size [assets of $50 billion as of March 31], how quickly can they make that change?” asked Bert Ely, a Virginia-based thrift industry consultant.
“Everybody and his brother is getting hot on consumer lending these days, but the consumer’s getting overloaded with debt,” Ely added. He said a danger for banks and thrifts crowding into both consumer and small-business lending is that losses will mount if heightening competition pushes companies to make risky loans.
In a telephone interview, Willison said his first job will be to help Ahmanson integrate into its operations the 61 First Interstate branches that it is buying from Wells Fargo. The branch purchase includes about $150 million worth of small-business loans that will become the core of the commercial loan portfolio that Ahmanson hopes to develop.
Longer-term, Willison said his task is to “diversify the income stream” at Ahmanson while continuing the company’s cost-cutting efforts.
Charles R. Rinehart, 49, Ahmanson’s chairman and chief executive, has said he is prepared to trim Home Savings’ portfolio of mortgage loans by as much as $20 billion as part of the transformation.
“Bruce brings Home Savings a wealth of banking experience and outstanding management skills, which will further our strategy of becoming a full-service consumer bank,” Rinehart said in a statement.
Ahmanson stock dipped 62.5 cents to $22.75 on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday.
Willison was the second high-profile First Interstate executive to join a major S&L; this week. On Monday, Great Western Financial Corp. named Jaynie Miller Studenmund to head its retail operations, basically the same job she had held at First Interstate.
