Career Tracks: Famed '80s Dealmaker Lives Out Alternative To Riding CEO

One of the best-known and most innovative banking dealmakers in the 1980s, Stephen T. McLin, resurfaced last month.

He got a mention in the local press May 9 when he announced the sale of his thrift, $2.2 billion-asset Eureka Bank of Foster City, Calif., to Bay View Capital Corp., San Mateo.

"Doing this deal I sort of felt like Gary Cooper in 'High Noon,' pulling my gun belt off the wall after nine years," Mr. McLin said. "I had to ask myself, 'Gee, do I still know how to do this?'"

Just a decade ago, Mr. McLin, now 51, was considered one of the brightest lights in the industry as executive vice president of strategic planning at BankAmerica Corp. Among other groundbreaking deals, he orchestrated its controversial acquisition of Charles Schwab & Co. in 1981.

His career moves since those heady days exemplify an up-and-coming bank executive taking the road less traveled.

Once considered to be on BofA's fast track-the company's current chief executive, David A. Coulter, reported to him for four years-Mr. McLin bowed out of the limelight in 1987 to form an investor group to buy troubled thrifts.

His career illustrates that not everyone who rises in the ranks of a large institution is aiming for the CEO slot.

Whether Mr. McLin really had a clear shot at BofA's top spot is another question, but for his part, Mr. McLin said, he didn't have the patience, the mind-set, or the interest to run a large bank, even if his stature at BofA while so young could've made him a candidate.

Part of his reason for leaving, he said, was that he wanted to reap more money from his dealmaking prowess by having an equity interest in the transactions. At BofA, his oversight of the $10 billion-asset Seafirst Corp. acquisition in 1983-at that time the biggest acquisition in industry history-earned him a measly $25,000 bonus, he said.

But he also recognized that he has the makeup of a dealmaker rather than that of a chief executive of a large bank. And he wanted more time with his family, he said.

"I think, intellectually, I could've run something that big, but when you talk to a McColl, or a Frank Newman or a John Reed, they'll tell you that they don't run the bank; the bank really runs them."

"I think most CEOs spend about 80% of their time at their desks being chief operating officers, rather than CEOs," he added. "It's way too easy to get caught up in too many operating decisions."

During just three years as BofA's strategic planner in the early 1980s, Mr. McLin engineered the deal to buy Charles Schwab, then pulled off the Seafirst transaction. Both acquisitions are still cited by bankers for their creativity. Mr. McLin was a mere 37 after the Seafirst deal.

The Charles Schwab acquisition-BofA paid $55 million, then sold out six years later for $270 million-was seen as a direct hit on the Glass-Steagall Act, which separates commercial and investment banking. The proposed deal prompted a legal review that went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in BofA's favor.

"What made that deal interesting was that if you asked 10,000 lawyers then if BofA could buy Schwab, every one of them would've said 'no' in a matter of seconds," Mr. McLin said.

Though he gave up the high profile of working for a large bank like BofA, Mr. McLin didn't give up all its comforts. His office, for example, is on the 44th floor of BankAmerica's corporate headquarters building-four floors above Mr. Coulter's office-and commands a spectacular view of San Francisco Bay.

He said he doesn't know what's next for him. He'll stay on as a director of the new Bay View and believes he'll probably be around for at least one more big deal. The post-merger company, with $5 billion of assets, will become a prime takeover candidate for an institution-probably the loser of the Great Western Financial Corp. takeover battle or the new U.S. Bancorp- that wants market share in the Bay Area, he said.

"If a bank wants to get 200,000 households in the Bay Area," he said, "there are not a lot of other options."

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