He was born in Cuba, cooks a mean paella, and spent many years living and working on the island of Jamaica.
Adolfo Henriques is not your typical Union Planters Corp. executive.
But the South Florida banker may be just the ticket to lead the bank's bold expansion efforts in the Sunshine State.
The bank became the talk of South Florida's banking community this year when it recruited Mr. Henriques, NationsBank's high-profile chairman for South Florida, as president and chief executive officer of Union Planters' operations in the state.
Mr. Henriques was given a clear assignment: Make Memphis-based Union Planters, then unknown in Florida banking, a name to be reckoned with.
That goal is being met faster than had been expected.
After acquiring $2.2 billion-asset Capital Bancorp of Miami in December, Union Planters last month agreed to purchase Boca Raton-based Transflorida Bank, with $315 million of assets and 12 branches. Later in March the bank said it would spend $110 million to buy 24 Florida branches with $1.5 billion of deposits from California Federal Bank.
The deals would expand Union Planters to about $3.3 billion of assets and more than 50 banking centers in the state. Its reach would stretch from South Florida to the state's west coast, as far north as Tampa Bay.
Still, Mr. Henriques' move from NationsBank, by far the largest bank in the state, raised many eyebrows.
But the 44-year-old executive explained his departure simply: To advance at NationsBank would have meant leaving Miami, where he has many professional and personal ties.
In addition, Mr. Henriques said, he will have more clout at Union Planters than at NationsBank, which is highly centralized and would become even more bureaucratic after the planned merger with BankAmerica Corp.
"This is an opportunity to have a direct impact on how we service our customers," Mr. Henriques said. "I do not like to say 'control,' but that is what it is-making the right decisions so we can differentiate Union Planters in the market and run the business more independently."
Mr. Henriques acknowledged that his task will not be easy. Union Planters has been expanding rapidly in the past year, but in familiar, contiguous markets. The Tennessee bank's leap to more exotic metropolitan Miami is its first outside the Deep South.
Further, Florida's recent banking history is littered with the failed efforts of out-of-state banks. The list includes First of America Bank Corp., Kalamazoo, Mich.; FirstMerit Corp., of Akron, Ohio; Great Western Financial Corp., of Chatsworth, Calif.; and Los Angeles-based California Federal Bank. Each swore it would become a large, prosperous player in the deposit-rich retirement state. Instead, all have retreated or been acquired themselves.
Union Planters has not set a strategy to become a statewide player, Mr. Henriques said. But in a state so dominated by North Carolina-based NationsBank and First Union Corp. and by Atlanta-based SunTrust Banks Inc., Union Planters will have to be opportunistic when blocks of branch deposits go up for sale, or community banks seek a buyer, he said.
Banking analyst John B. Moore, senior vice president of Morgan Keegan & Co., said Union Planter's rapid moves in Florida typify its successful strategy of entering a market, expanding, and consolidating quickly.
But another analyst with a firsthand view of Florida's banking wars suggested Union Planters has an uphill task of becoming a strong player in the state. Richard Bove of Raymond James Financial Corp. in St. Petersburg, Fla., said banks still have misperceptions about striking it rich in Florida.
Union Planters, Wachovia Corp., Huntington Bancshares, Colonial BancGroup, and SouthTrust Corp. are all walking into a tougher-than-ever banking market, Mr. Bove said. Florida has too many institutions, industry margins are starting to shrink, and price competition is increasing thanks to NationsBank's takeover in January of Barnett Banks, he added.
"It's the wrong time for Union Planters in Florida," Mr. Bove insisted.
But Mr. Henriques expresses no doubts about his new bank's ability to compete in Florida.
"Union Planters has been looking for the right opportunity here for a long time, and with Capital Bank one came along," he said. "Now we are quickly moving to fill in that franchise. I have complete confidence that the commitment exists to continue to support and grow a franchise in Florida."
In Memphis, where Union Planters has at least 12 deals in the works to add an additional $11.5 billion to overall assets of $18.1 billion, chairman and CEO Benjamin Rawlins Jr. voiced the same enthusiasm for Florida in a recent letter to company shareholders. Florida is the "most populous" of Union Planters' states, Mr. Rawlins said, and Miami's growth in international trade and tourism has been "remarkable."
Certainly the hiring of Mr. Henriques is expected to help promote and expand the bank's Florida franchise.
As chairman of the state's Financial Oversight Board, which is sorting out Miami's troubled finances, Mr. Henriques gets access to some of Florida's most influential people. He also leads the Beacon Council, the most important business development group in Miami. And he finds time to be involved in the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau and the United Way for Miami-Dade County.
"The time constraints clearly are significant, but I am going to stay involved in civic endeavors," Mr. Henriques said. That depth of involvement has long been part of his career.
Mr. Henriques' family moved to Jamaica as exiles from Fidel Castro's Cuba. The father was a banker with Bank of Nova Scotia, which the son would later join.
The younger Mr. Henriques studied accounting at St. Leo College, a Catholic school north of Tampa. He later added a master's degree in accounting from Florida International University.
After a stint at Ryder System, the truck rental company, he joined Bank of Nova Scotia, first in Toronto and then in Miami.
In 1986, when the Miami office was closed, he joined Barnett Bank of South Florida in commercial real estate lending. In 1992 he moved to NationsBank to head an expanding international operation.
At Union Planters, Mr. Henriques plans to start his work by reshaping the former Capital Bank and blending it with Transflorida's offices and the farther-flung branches of California Federal. The job is daunting, partly because Capital Bank has had such a controversial past. It was forced into a sale to Union Planters last year after its founder pleaded guilty to charges of misleading a grand jury.
Despite its problems, Capital had a reputation for strong commercial lending and trade finance operations, which gives Mr. Henriques a base from which to work.
His strategy, he said, is to run the new Union Planters Bank of Florida as if it were a community bank.
"The one complaint I hear the most from people is that they don't like the one-size-fits-all approach," Mr. Henriques said. To change that image, he said, he aims to cater to individual banking needs.
"That's Union Planters' message," Mr. Henriques said. "But judge us through our actions and not just through our words."
