When St. Louis-based Boatmen's Bancshares announced late last summer that it would acquire Fourth Financial Corp., the biggest banking company in Kansas, Martin E. "Sandy" Galt, chairman of Boatmen's Trust Co., got a boost - Bank IV's $5.5 billion trust business.
Mr. Galt has spent the four months since the deal's close trying to retain that new business. The key: keeping the majority of Bank IV's account administrators in place.
"They know a lot more about Kansas then we do," Mr. Galt said. "We want to reassure the customer that the person they have been doing business with in Wichita or Topeka is the same."
Initially, Boatmen's anticipated that Fourth Financial's trust and investment management business would bring in $22 million in fees this year. Now, Mr. Galt says the contribution will be closer to $25 million.
Fourth Financial's Kansas trust business expands Boatmen's domain to 10 states, with $82.9 billion assets under management, making it the "prominent player" in its market.
One change for the combined unit was the retirement of Michael R. Ritchey, president of trust and investments at Fourth Financial.
Robert L. Allison, former president of Boatmen's Trust of Illinois, moved from St. Louis to become regional president of Bank IV in Kansas, overseeing the 100 former Bank IV trust employees.
Mr. Allison's priority has been familiarizing his new staff with Boatmen's product line.
For instance, Bank IV's proprietary mutual fund family, Funds IV, is being folded into Boatmen's family, the Pilot Funds. When the families come together later this year, there will be 12 Pilot funds.
"We're able to add to their arsenal a much wider array of investment products - international products, small-cap products - things that they did not have," Mr. Galt said.
Boatmen executives have spent a good part of their time trying to meet a June 30 deadline to convert Bank IV's trust business onto the Amtrust accounting system that Boatmen's uses.
"Until you get everybody on the same system, you're not able to realize any staff savings in terms of back-office, to be very blunt about it," Mr. Galt said. "So you start plugging away with that right away."
