Amex Calls in Help
A former executive with Skype and eBay Inc. is joining American Express Co. as president of the New York credit card lender's U.S. consumer services business.
Amex said Thursday that Josh Silverman will assume the post in July. The position has been vacant since
Silverman most recently was an executive in residence at the venture capital firm Greylock Partners in Menlo Park, Calif., which he joined in late 2010. Before that he was the chief executive of the online voice and video communication company Skype, which eBay sold to an investor group in 2009 and is now being acquired by Microsoft Corp. Silverman also served in various senior executive positions at eBay.
"In Josh we have found an executive with a track record as both a visionary entrepreneur and an effective leader for amazing growth opportunities," Ed Gilligan, a vice chairman with Amex, said in a press release. He added that Silverman's digital marketing expertise would help the company as it looks for new growth opportunities.
A Natural Diet
Don't expect Huntington Bancshares Inc. of Columbus, Ohio, to buy another bank any time soon.
Columbus Business First reported on its website this week that Chief Executive Stephen Steinour recently told investors and analysts that Huntington is far more focused on organic growth than it is on doing deals.
"It would have to be economically compelling for us to want to do an acquisition right now," Steinour said at the Sanford C. Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference in New York on June 1. "Nothing in our region is that strategically compelling."
The $53 billion-asset Huntington last made an acquisition in 2009, when it bought the failed Warren Bank in Warren, Mich., and its last open-bank deal was in 2007, when it acquired the $17 billion-asset Sky Financial Group Inc. in Salineville, Ohio. Though that deal helped to boost market share and moved Huntington into some new markets, it also saddled the company with scores of problem loans that contributed to a $3.1 billion loss in 2009.
Under Steinour, who joined the company in January 2009, Huntington has focused on building its customer base through a renewed commitment to small-business lending and consumer-friendly initiatives, like offering customers a 24-hour grace period on overdrafts. In the first quarter, the company reported that total and core deposits each increased 3% from the quarter that ended Dec. 31.
At the conference, Steinour said that acquiring customers, not banks, would remain Huntington's top priority. "An acquisition is a distraction on some levels," he said. "Our priority is to grow the core."
That's Retention!
That said, a long-ago deal brought Huntington perhaps its most loyal customer — and we mean really loyal.
June Gregg of Ohio, who turned 100 last week, has had the same bank account for nearly as long as she's been alive.
Gregg's father opened the account for her with an initial deposit of $6.11 in January 1913, when she wasn't even a year and a half old,
The employees at Gregg's local Huntington branch in Chillicothe, Ohio, helped her celebrate her birthday, complete with a cake and balloons. The bank also gave Gregg a special gift: For 100 days she'll earn about 5% interest on the account, roughly five times the average going rate, the AP said.
Stat of the Week
Lots of companies tout their good works, but someone in accounting at Harris Financial Corp. and BMO Capital Markets in Chicago must have helped draft the announcement Thursday of the sister companies' fifth annual employee volunteer day.
Their news release cited an estimate by Independent Sector, a network of nonprofits, foundations and corporate giving programs, that said the value of a volunteer hour is $21.36. With 2,100 employees staffing 70 landscaping, teaching and other projects in eight states, the companies said their work was worth more than $134,568.
Talk about detailed documentation. Could the folks at Harris and BMO Capital Markets do the People columnists' taxes next year?
New Arrivals
Veteran regulatory lawyer Susan C. Ervin has joined Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP as a partner in the law firm's financial institutions practice in Washington.
She adds to Davis Polk's expertise in futures, commodities, derivatives and swaps.
Davis Polk described Ervin in a press release as one of "the leading regulatory lawyers" in the U.S., having worked for the Securities and Exchange Commission, the international law firm Dechert LLP and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, where she was deputy director and chief council of trading and markets.
A former Wachovia Corp. insurance executive has come to roost at Wells Fargo & Co. Tom Sewell, who specializes in commercial insurance and risk management, has joined Wells Fargo Insurance Services as insurance brokering executive, reporting to the company's San Francisco Bay Area regional headquarters.
Sewell previously worked for Aon Risk Services Inc. and was the national practice leader at Wachovia Insurance Services. In recent years he's won repeat honors from Risk & Insurance for brokering complex policies related to workers' compensation.
By Andrew Johnson, Alan Kline, Sara Lepro, Dean Anason, Matthew Monks and Jeff Horwitz
