H.F. Ahmanson Names Forster President, Member of the Board

H.F. Ahmanson & Co. has named Fredric J. Forster president and a member of its board. He remains chief operating officer of Ahmanson and of its principal subsidiary, Home Savings of America.

He is also vice chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco.

Mr. Forster joined Ahmanson in 1993. He was founding president of Newport Balboa Savings and Loan Association, which was bought by ITT Financial Corp. and renamed ITT Federal Bank.

The presidency of Ahmanson became vacant when Charles Rinehart became chairman of Ahmanson earlier this year upon the retirement of longtime Ahmanson chairman Richard Deihl. He became chairman of Home and CEO of both Ahmanson and Home last year.

As the person in charge of conventional lending, Mr. Forster will play a key role in developing and executing the thrift's mortgage strategies. And as operations chief, he is likely to play a major part in the company's move into commercial banking.

Mr. Forster is a graduate of Princeton University and the Harvard business school.

Ahmanson also promoted Kevin M. Twomey to senior executive vice president and Anne-Drue Anderson to executive vice president.

Before joining Ahmanson in 1993, Mr. Twomey was a corporate finance executive for MacAndrews & Forbes and was earlier chief financial officer for First Gibraltar Bank and for the MBank group. He will be senior executive VP for both Ahmanson and Home.

Ms. Anderson will be executive VP at both companies as well and is already treasurer of both. Previously, she was the bank and thrift strategist for First Boston Corp., and earlier senior vice president and treasurer for First Gibraltar Bank.

Home is the nation's largest savings and loan association, with assets of more than $53 billion.

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Continental Mortgage Co. has promoted Richard W.H. Bennion to executive vice president of residential lending.

He replaces, Alden J. Fischer Jr., who is retiring.

Mr. Bennion will be responsible for overseeing all single-family residential lending for Continental, including both construction and permanent loans.

He joined Continental in 1977 as assistant manager of secondary marketing.

Continental operates 16 residential lending offices in Washington, Oregon, and Hawaii. It services about $3.15 billion in mortgages.

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