Sipping tea in Washington's grand old Willard Hotel last week, James F. Montgomery, former chairman of Great Western Financial, looked like the elder statesman that he is.
Tall, gray-haired, and courteous, Mr. Montgomery had just come from a meeting of Freddie Mac's board of directors in McLean, Va. This summer Mr. Montgomery, 62, stepped down as chairman of Great Western after more than two decades at its helm. The California thrift was sold to Washington Mutual Inc., Seattle, in July.
Now he's preparing for a second act. He has applied to the Office of Thrift Supervision to set up a thrift in Park City, the Utah ski resort where he has vacationed for many years.
"Diane and I feel it's too early to smell the roses," Mr. Montgomery said of his wife and himself, explaining why he's jumping back into the fray.
The proposed Bank of the West will be small. It expects to amass $100 million of assets in six years, by contrast with Great Western, which had more than $40 billion of assets when it was sold.
But smallness appeals to Mr. Montgomery these days.
"I think people are generally frustrated dealing with big banks and big companies," he said, because big business is inevitably impersonal.
When he started at Great Western, Mr. Montgomery recalled, he "really had the opportunity to know employees and customers. When you are $40 billion, that's a thing of the past."
Running a big bank is just "not as much fun," he said.
In his new venture, Mr. Montgomery said, service will be friendly and loan decisions quick. He said the thrift will make money "making loans big banks don't want to make" and selling private banking services to affluent customers.
For example, construction loans to people building their own houses aren't economical for big banks, Mr. Montgomery said, but Bank of the West will make them very profitably.
The thrift will also make mortgage loans in Park City and in nearby Salt Lake City.
Mr. Montgomery will put up more than half the thrift's $5 million of capital. He said he would have a seasoned team to run the new thrift.
Making money at Bank of the West won't be a slam dunk, said Charlotte A. Chamberlain of Jefferies & Co., Los Angeles.
"Small institutions are at a tremendous disadvantage-they don't have the technology, they don't have the economies of scale," Ms. Chamberlain said. "I'm just not sure how viable this can be."
Home prices in the area have also been extremely volatile, she said.
But "certainly he's been a very successful home lender," she said of Mr. Montgomery. And the strong economy, the 2002 Winter Olympics, and the emergence of Park City as a bedroom community to Salt Lake will help the new thrift, she added.
Second acts are growing more common for business executives. They're retiring with handsome stock portfolios and pensions, but they want to keep working-at least some of the time.
Mr. Montgomery, for example, sold his stake in Great Western for an estimated $30 million to $35 million. Still, he's not ready to give up work. "I don't want to play golf every day," he said. "I enjoy being part of the business world in a day-to-day way."
He divides his time these days among his homes near the ski slopes of Park City and at Palm Springs and Lake Tahoe. He skis, goes trout fishing, and golfs in Utah. He and his wife also travel in their motor home with their golden retriever, Mary Kate Denner, named after a character in a John Wayne movie, "The Quiet Man."
James Montgomery started at Great Western in 1975 and was considered among the most innovative big-thrift executives of his time. "He really was ahead of most of us" on marketing adjustable-rate mortgages, said Ray Martin, chairman of Coast Savings Financial Inc., Los Angeles.
He convinced his sales force that consumers would take out adjustables and was proved right, said Mr. Martin, who will join the board of directors at H.F. Ahmanson & Co. when Coast's sale to Ahmanson closes in February.
Mr. Montgomery was also the driving force behind Great Western's strategy to fund its loans through a mix of checking accounts and CDs and to mimic banks by offering services for fees.
As the elected head of the industry trade group, America's Community Bankers, Mr. Montgomery played an active role last year in negotiating an end to the high deposit insurance premiums thrifts had paid for many years.
He's obviously thinking of all these laurels as he puts his name to another venture.
"My reputation is on the line here," he said. "I don't want to do it wrong."
