A shake-up at Shawmut National Corp. has put three top executives on the street. Strategic planner Bharat Bhatt, acquisitions chief John Berger, and Allen W. Sanborn, head of the company's Boston bank, will leave Shawmut National as part of a previously announced restructuring plan, the company said Monday.
None of the three could be reached for comment. But a spokesman for the Boston and Hartford, Conn.-based bank said, "This is basically related to our ongoing effort to reduce corporate hierarchy and make us more customer focused and effective."
Shawmut, which has $31 billion of assets, announced at the end of the second quarter that it would take an after-tax charge of $26 million to cover an expansion of its cost management program.
The company said the new cuts would involve "organizational streamlining and the elimination of more than 600 full-time-equivalent positions over the next year." Shawmut had 10,495 employees at the end of the second quarter.
Its overhead ratio - 65.4% - is still higher than those of most of its peers, despite recent improvements. Shawmut said the duties of Mr. Bhatt, Mr. Berger, and Mr. Sanborn will be assumed by other executives in the company.
Mr. Bhatt and Mr. Sanborn joined Shawmut in 1992. Mr. Berger is a longtime Shawmut employee.
Mr. Bhatt had been an executive vice president in charge of strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions, and investor relations.
Taking up those jobs will be Susan Lester, who joined Shawmut earlier this year as executive vice president and chief financial officer, the latter a post previously held by Mr. Bhatt.
Ms. Lester will also take up the acquisitions management job previously held by Mr. Berger, an executive vice president.
Mr. Sanborn, the president of Shawmut Bank of Boston, had also been in charge of commercial, national, commercial real estate, asset-based, and specialized lending. Those duties will be absorbed by John O. Huston, executive vice president and chief credit officer.
Some other responsibilities of Mr. Sanborn - international, non-profit business, and the health care industry - will be taken up by Niels C. Jensen, executive vice president of financial institutions.
Joel B. Alvord,. Shawmut's chairman and CEO, will assume the chairmanship of the Boston bank. Gunnar S. Overstrom, Shawmut's president and chief operating officer, will take Mr. Sanborn's title of president at Shawmut Bank of Boston.
None of the three executives who take pieces of Mr. Bhatt's and Mr. Berger's jobs are longtime Shawmut employees.
Ms. Lester joined Shawmut in July from First Bank System Inc. in Minneapolis, where she had been executive vice president and corporate controller. She spent 11 years at Ernst & Young before joining First Bank in 1988.
Mr. Huston came to Shawmut in June 1993 after 18 years with Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh, where his jobs included chief credit officer.
Mr. Jensen joined Shawmut in October 1993 from Northern Trust Co. in Chicago, where he had been senior vice president of corporate financial services.
