After talking tough, Sen. Arlen Specter last week backed off his threat to block the First Union-CoreStates merger.
The Pennsylvania Republican was among the deal's most vocal critics, threatening to introduce legislation that would have se-verely restricted bank consolidations and post-merger branch closures.
But on April 13-the same day two other giant bank mergers were announced-Sen. Specter told reporters that his idea had attracted little support.
"I circulated the bill and, as expected, got a lot of objections to any more regulation," he said. "And I thought it would be too heavy-handed to try to influence this arrangement, where people were negotiating under existing law."
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Will the merger frenzy reduce the Bankers Roundtable to the Bankers TV Table?
That's the joke circulating at rival trade groups where insiders are speculating about the impact of proposed mergers involving some of the group's largest members: Banc One Corp., BankAmerica Corp., Citicorp, NationsBank Corp., and First Chicago NBD Corp.
But Bankers Roundtable executive director Tony Cluff denied the mergers will impose any hardship on the group.
"Consolidation has been taking place, and our membership has stayed the same," he said.
Besides, any effort to make the group more exclusive could reduce its geographic representation and thus its influence with Congress, he said.
The Bankers Roundtable, which has about 90 members, recruits from the 125 largest banking organizations, ranked by assets. When mergers occur, smaller institutions simply become eligible to join, he explained.
But what do the Bankers Roundtable's smallest members-F.N.B. Corp. in Hermitage, Pa., and National Bank of Alaska in Anchorage, each with $2.8 billion of assets-have in common anymore with its largest members, who keep growing? The proposed merger of BankAmerica and NationsBank, for instance, would produce a bank with $572.2 billion of assets.
Still, even the heads of these small Bankers Roundtable members said they belong. "We have a very definite common interest in banking and bank modernization," said Peter Mortensen, F.N.B.'s chairman. "They have more customers than we have, but our customers and their customers are pretty much the same."
"I like to be on the Roundtable," said Edward B. Rasmuson, who serves as chairman of National Bank of Alaska and as a Roundtable board member. "I can know what the big boys are thinking.
"Forewarned is forearmed."
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Charlie Gonzalez is likely to succeed his father as a Democratic congressman from Texas. Rep. Henry B. Gonzalez, House Banking's former chairman and ranking Democrat, is retiring after 38 years in Congress.
The younger Gonzalez, a former state district judge, bested San Antonio City Councilwoman Maria Berriozabal in last week's runoff for the Democratic nomination, winning 62% of the vote.
Mr. Gonzalez is expected to win the overwhelmingly Democratic district when he faces Republican James Walker in the Nov. 3 election.
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Utah Financial Institutions Commissioner G. Edward Leary has been named to the state liaison committee of the Federal Financial Examination Council.
The committee is comprised of state banking regulators and is responsible for developing uniform examination principles for state and federal supervisors.
Mr. Leary begins a two-year term on the committee May 1. He also ends a 12-month stint as chairman of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors this month.
