First Citizens in N.C. Forms Post-Merger Management Team

First Citizens BancShares (FCNCA) in Raleigh, N.C., has decided on the management team that will run the company after it buys First Citizens Bancorp. in Columbia, S.C.

The $22 billion-asset First Citizens BancShares agreed earlier this month to pay up to $676 million in cash and stock for the $8 billion-asset First Citizens Bancorp. The merger of the companies — each majority owned by the Holding family — would create the nation's biggest family owned bank.

Frank Holding Jr. will remain the company's chairman and chief executive. Hope Holding Bryant, Frank Holding's sister, will remain vice chairman, though she will add the title of corporate sales executive with oversight of expansion markets and wealth management.

Peter Bristow, chief operating officer of First Citizens Bancorp, will become president and a corporate sales executive at the post-merger company. Bristow, the brother-in-law for Frank Holding and Hope Bryant, will focus on existing markets.

The company said Craig Nix, First Citizens Bancorp's chief financial officer, will become its CFO, succeeding Glenn McCoy, who will retire.

Jeffery Ward will become the company's chief strategy officer, filling a newly created post. Ward is a regional executive vice president at First-Citizens Bank & Trust, a unit of First Citizens BancShares.

Edward Willingham will complete the six-member leadership team in the newly created post of chief operating officer. Willingham is president of First Citizens BancShares; he is being succeeded in that role by Bristow.

The company disclosed earlier this month that Jim Apple, First Citizens Bancorp's chairman and CEO, will retire.

The appointments, disclosed in a recent regulatory filing, will become effective when the merger is completed. The companies have said they expect to close the transaction in the fourth quarter.