Continental Plans to Fly Solo

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. – Navigating through financial turbulence, officials of Continental FCU unveiled a plan yesterday to reverse the credit union’s declining financial profile and fend off a hostile takeover from fellow air transport credit union Wings Financial FCU. The news came after the $1.6 billion Wings Financial asserted it will press on with its attempt to acquire the much smaller credit union, and insisted Continental members would be better served as part of the much larger institution, even as the Continental board rejected a merger proposal from Wings Financial a fourth time. Thomas Glatt, president of the embattled $176 million credit union, acknowledged his credit union’s declining financials–assets, loans, shares and net income all declined last year and the credit union has lost 21% of its members over the past five years–but insisted Continental, like its corporate sponsor, has a turn-around plan. The plan includes last August’s roll-out of a full service securities brokerage under the aegis of XCU Capital; the pending addition of more than 4,000 branches by joining Financial Services Centers Cooperative, and yesterday’s initiation of 20,000 new ATMs as part of the CU24 network., to go with the 25,000 ATMs already available as part of CO-OP Financial Services. In addition, Continental FCU plans to open a new branch, its sixth, in Houston, and is negotiating for an additional branch at Philadelphia International Airport. That’s how Continental plans to use some of its 17% of accumulated capital, amounting $30 million–targeted by Wings Financial. “We don’t want to talk to the past,” Glatt told The Credit Union Journal, of the credit union’s deteriorating financials of the past five years, “We want to talk to the future.” Glatt, the well-known credit union consultant who took the pilot’s seat at Continental on August 1, also noted that since both credit unions have TIP charters serving the entire air transport industry, Continental members are already fee to join Wings Financial if they want.