State Farm Vows No Flip To S&LCharter

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. - (06/30/06) – State Farm Insurance has nocurrent plans to use the unprecedented roll-up of 12 of its creditunions into a $3 billion credit union giant to launch a mutualsavings bank, the executive leading the deal said Thursday. TomDeWitt, president of State Farm Great Lakes FCU, who will head thecredit union combination, told The Credit Union Journal that anyspeculation that the State Farm Insurance-affiliated credit unionsare being merged in order to then again be merged with a State FarmInsurance-owned thrift is unfounded. "That’s completelyfalse," he insisted. "No truth to that whatsoever." DeWitt wasresponding to behind-the scenes reports that State Farm would usethe rare credit union roll-up, like Nationwide Insurance is usingits acquisition of Nationwide FCU, to facilitate a national savingsbank. DeWitt said his main sponsor, insurance giant State Farm,wants the two organizations to remain separate. He noted thatColumbus, Ohio-based Nationwide FCU is an independent organizationthat doesn’t operate as an employee benefit in the way theState Farm-affiliated credit unions do.

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