NEW BERLIN, Wis. – Landmark CU announced yesterday it has agreed to acquire four smaller credit unions, including two troubled institutions, Allco CU and First Security CU.
The $1.4 billion credit union is just completing acquisitions of Wiscor CU and Lifetime CU, two ailing credit unions.
Allco, Wiscor and Lifetime are all based in West Allis and First Security is based in nearby Elm Grove.
"Wiscor and Lifetime were completed June 30," said Pat Ransom, vice president for marketing at Landmark. "We’re just waiting for the computer systems to be converted before announcing the other two publicly. Everything’s done and approved."
Ron Kase, president of Landmark, said one of the mergers involved regulatory assistance. But he would not say which one. He said they continue to be interested in potential mergers. "If the right opportunity came along then we would be interested," he told The Credit Union Journal yesterday.
Landmark earned $11.6 million in net income (about $8 million after figuring out expenses for the NCUSIF stabilization)for the first six months of the year and had net worth of 7.5%, according to Kase.
Three of the credit unions were owners of Central State Mortgage Corp., the mortgage CUSO that went bust earlier this year. Allco lost about $255,000 on its Central State investments. First Security lost $202,500 on Central States, and Lifetime lost $100,000.
Allco, a one-time $86 million credit union being shopped by state regulators in recent months, has seen its assets fall to just $52 million, and reported a loss of $705,200 and net worth of just 1.6% at mid-year.
First Security, a one-time $36 million credit union, had a mid-year loss of $2.3 million and net worth of less than 1% at June 30, while its assets had dwindled to $30 million.
Lifetime is a $32 million credit union that lost more than $2 million in the first quarter. Wiscor is a $15 million credit union that lost $116,000 for the first quarter, all of it due to the corporate credit union bailout expense.
