PrivateBancorp Inc.'s strategy for replacing LaSalle Bank Corp. as the Chicago area's top middle-market lender has been to hire dozens of LaSalle bankers with thick Rolodexes, and its next pickup could be its biggest one yet.
According to local news reports, the $6 billion-asset PrivateBancorp is expected to hire LaSalle's former top executive, Norman R. Bobins, as the chairman of its PrivateBank.
Mr. Bobins resigned as LaSalle's president and chief executive in March of last year but remained its chairman. He retired in December, after ABN Amro Holding NV sold LaSalle to Bank of America Corp. for $21 billion.
A PrivateBancorp spokeswoman would not confirm the report in Crain's Chicago Business. Mr. Bobins, 65, did not return calls for comment. Analysts said hiring him would be a coup for PrivateBancorp, which has been ramping up its commercial lending since LaSalle was sold.
"If you are hiring most of their bankers, why not hire them all?" asked Peyton Green, an analyst with First Horizon National Corp.'s FTN Midwest Securities Corp. "Why not have the person that built it?"
Mr. Bobins became LaSalle's president and CEO in 1991. During his tenure it made seven acquisitions, and its assets grew more than tenfold, to $72 billion.
He would be joining dozens of ex-colleagues, including Larry D. Richman, who succeeded Mr. Bobins as LaSalle's president and CEO and has held the same titles at PrivateBancorp since November.
At PrivateBancorp, Mr. Richman succeeded Ralph Mandell, who is expected to remain the chairman through 2012. Mr. Richman is also the chairman of PrivateBank, but according to news reports, he would cede that position to Mr. Bobins.
"It wouldn't be because … [Mr. Richman] can't handle the workload or responsibility," said Bradley Vander Ploeg, an analyst with Raymond James & Associates in Chicago. "Having them both would add more firepower to the organization."
