Further signaling its intent to expand, Citizens Financial Group in Providence, R.I., has tapped Bradford B. Kopp, an investment banker for most of his cancer, as chief financial officer.
Mr. Kopp, 41, joined the company last week as an executive vice president, after a 12-year career at Lehman Brothers in New York.
Most recently a managing director in the investment bank's financial services group, Mr. Kopp has raised capital for both commercial and savings banks and has handled numerous mergers and acquisitions.
Now I get to be on the other side," he said.
On the Acquisition Trail
The merger and acquisitions experience should prove handy at Citizens, a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland PLC that is hot on the acquisition trail in Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Citizens has been given the mandate by its parent to more than double its $4.5 billion of assets to $1.0 billion by the end of 1995.
"It's a very exciting place to be," Mr. Kopp said. "There is all this capital in Scotland that's available to build the bank."
With Royal Bank's $60 billion in assets, Mr. Kopp said, Citizens has the firepower it needs to compete with New England banking behemoths such as Fleet Financial Group, Bank of Boston Corp.. and Shawmut National Corp., which are also hungry, for acquisitions.
That kind of capital more than makes up for Citizens inability to do a stock-swap transaction, he said. (Because of its overseas parentage, Citizens shares do not trade on an exchange.)
|Some Prefer Cash'
"Having a high stock price would be an advantage," Mr. Kopp conceded, "but some people do prefer cash."
Citizens is currently digesting Boston Five Bancorp and New England Savings Bank, a failed Connecticut thrift. The two will add $2.5 billion of assets to Citizens and, according to Mr. Kopp, turn the bank into the nation's 50th largest.
"We have our hands full right now, but we want to expand," Mr. Kopp said.
