Southwest Corporate FCU Announces Merger with Southeast

DALLAS - Southwest Corporate FCU and Southeast Corporate FCU, Tallahassee, Fla., Tuesday announced they have agreed to merge, continuing a consolidation trend that has shrunk the corporate network from 44 corporates to just 26 over the past decade. The latest merger will create a corporate serving more than 1,500 credit unions with more than $14 billion in assets, the second largest (outside of U.S. Central CU) behind WesCorp FCU and its $26 billion. Bill Birdwell, president of Southeast Corporate FCU, will be CEO of the combined corporate, which will be based in Plano, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. "Anytime you have an opportunity like this, we're interested," Jody Beck, interim CEO at Southwest since the departure of Francis Lee to head U.S. Central CU, told The Credit Union Journal. "These two corporates bring a lot of synergies to the table. They¹re both financially strong and have similar corporate cultures." The merger must now be approved by members of Southeast Corporate. At least three other corporate mergers are currently in the works: Empire Corporate FCU (New York) with Mid-States Corporate FCU (Illinois); Corporate America CU (Alabama) with Louisiana Corporate CU; and WesCorp FCU (California) with Volunteer Corporate FCU (Tennessee).