Elvis Sighting in Ala.
Elvis has left the building and his old job at California Federal Bank. He's now working in Alabama.
Not that Elvis, but Elvis Schmiedekamp, who this month joined AmSouth Bancorp in Birmingham as the senior vice president for consumer banking overseeing customer service.
Mr. Schmiedekamp, formerly the head of customer service at the San Francisco-based Cal Fed, became well-known in California and Nevada thanks to a popular advertising campaign that put his photo and down-home sayings on billboards and buses and broadcast his wisdom in radio spots.
He found himself out of a job in October, when Citigroup Inc. bought Cal Fed's parent, Golden State Bancorp. Later that month he told American Banker that the ad campaign was slated to end and that he was considering a Citibank job in his home state of Texas.
Today some California buses are still running the ads, even though Mr. Schmiedekamp has been working at AmSouth for two weeks.
"I was looking for an organization that met a high criteria for me personally - a very high-performing bank focused on a sales culture that was about taking care of customers and focused on taking care of employees," he said.
AmSouth does not plan to put him on any billboards. "My days in advertising are ended," he said by phone.
Mr. Schmiedekamp was not the only Cal Fed banker to uproot himself after Citi's takeover. The bank's executive team and most of its nonbranch personnel were let go, and some are showing up at a handful of banks in the Bay Area.
Ken Shannon, the former chief credit officer, took the newly created position of chief risk officer at Greater Bay Bancorp. Last week, the Palo Alto bank announced that it had reached an agreement with the Federal Reserve Board to improve its processes for complying with the Bank Secrecy Act and anti-laundering laws.
The new job "has been a bit overwhelming and a tremendous amount of work," but he knew what he was getting into, he said by phone Thursday.
Susan Cotton, Cal Fed's former head of marketing, this month became the executive vice president of marketing and corporate communications at Bank of the West, the San Francisco-based subsidiary of BancWest Corp. Scott Saunders is now its director of security, the same job he held at Cal Fed.
Richard Leweke, the former executive vice president of human resources and administrative services, this month took the same job at the San Francisco-based Providian Financial Corp.
One executive who had appeared to be staying with Citi has also jumped ship.
Robert Trujillo, who ran branch banking at Cal Fed, became the chief operating officer at Citi's banking subsidiary in California and Nevada after the acquisition. But he has since moved on to California National Bank, a Los Angeles-based subsidiary of FBOP Corp. in Oak Park, Ill.
A Cutback at Citi
Sandy Weill is not melting; he is just on a diet.
And clearly the Citigroup chairman believes that Wall Street is watching his personal statistics as closely as his company's financials.
On a conference call Tuesday, he assured listeners that he is making dietary progress. "Happy New Year," Mr. Weill told analysts. "For those of you who count my weight, it continues to go down."
Todd Thomson, his chief financial officer, chimed in: "He's paid to have his suits taken in."
Mr. Weill's press officer would not give out details or even say whether the chairman is favoring all carbs or all protein.
Doughty Northerner
If anyone had any doubts that the go-go '90s are gone forever - buried deep under plummeting stock prices, corporate scandals, and weak earnings - Northern Trust Corp.'s conference call Wednesday should have removed them.
Perry Pero, its chief financial officer, had the pleasure of explaining declines in fourth-quarter and full-year net income, which he blamed on the economy and dreadful equity markets.
He remained upbeat throughout the call and employed an aw-shucks delivery and gallows humor. Yet one exchange with Nancy Bush, an independent analyst, put things in perspective.
Ms. Bush: "Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed."
Mr. Perry: "We're still optimistic. … You and I have never seen markets like this."
Ms. Bush: "And I hope to never again."
