MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. — Credit union giants Kinecta FCU and NuVision FCU have called off their proposed combination, which would have been the second biggest credit union merger ever, creating a $4.4 billion credit union.
Roger Ballard, the NuVision CEO who has been running Kinecta for the past year in preparation for the merger, will continue as joint CEO of both credit unions while Kinecta conducts a CEO search process and puts a transition plan in place.
As both credit unions have continued to assess the length of time required for merger review, approval and integration, they now estimate an additional two-year timeframe given the economic environment. Both credit unions have come to the conclusion that continuing the merger process for this amount of time would be too disruptive to their business and members.
The merger would have been second in size only to last year's combination of California' Addison Avenue FCU and Oregon's First Tech CU, creating a $5 billion credit union.
Cancelation of the mega-merger comes after Kinecta, a one-time $4.4-billion credit union giant that returned to the black last year after two miserable years and $126 million in losses, fell back into the red in 2011 to the tune of $30.6 million, stretching out the timeframe for the giant combination. But Ballard said as recently as January he still hoped to complete the giant deal.
