Most senior executives at National Commerce Financial Corp. will still have jobs after SunTrust Banks Inc. buys the Memphis company for $7 billion in cash and stock.
The pair announced their deal in May and on Monday named leadership for the Carolinas and Memphis, two key areas where SunTrust currently has little or no presence.
The Atlanta company plans to keep most of National Commerce's local and regional bankers in place, which it hopes will keep customer defections to a minimum after the deal closes in October or November.
William R. Reed Jr., Nat Commerce's chief executive, said SunTrust would bring National Commerce's branches "more robust technology and products," but customers "should not see any change from a product or process standpoint."
"With a positive feeling about the brand and no disturbing of their contacts, we should have very high retention," Mr. Reed said in an interview.
The $128 billion-asset SunTrust currently has no branches in Memphis or North Carolina and only a handful in South Carolina. It plans to put its name on National Commerce's branches and convert systems in February.
Richard Furr, Nat Commerce's chief operating officer, would become chairman, president, and CEO of a new, fourth banking region at SunTrust, the Carolinas Banking Group. Scott Edwards, Nat Commerce's chief administrative officer, would be the Carolinas group's credit officer.
John Stallings, director of retail banking for Nat Commerce, would become retail line of business manager for the Carolinas, also overseeing business and private banking in the two states. Dan Hogan, Nat Commerce's regional president for Atlanta, Savannah, West Virginia, and north Georgia, was named to oversee commercial and real estate banking for the Carolinas.
SunTrust also plans to keep most of Nat Commerce's regional executives in the Carolinas. The only major change involves Robert Jones, currently chief credit officer at the Memphis company, who would become chairman, president, and CEO for Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill and be based in Raleigh. He is to succeed Rick Glover, who announced before the deal with SunTrust that he planned to retire, a National Commerce spokeswoman said Monday.
Keeping Nat Commerce's leadership intact in the Carolinas could help SunTrust "hit the ground running" after the deal closes, according to Christopher Marinac, an analyst at FIG Partners in Atlanta.
"North Carolina was the thing SunTrust wanted most out of National Commerce," he said.
David Popwell, a Nat Commerce executive vice president, is to continue overseeing Nat Commerce's nonbanking businesses. Mr. Popwell would also become chairman of SunTrust's new Memphis banking region. Bill Menkel, currently Memphis and Nashville president for Nat Commerce, would become Memphis president.
National Commerce's No. 2 executive, chief financial officer John Presley, is overseeing merger integration along with SunTrust's James Wells 3d, though the companies have not announced any other post-merger role for him. Nor has SunTrust announced a job for John Mistretta, National Commerce's executive vice president for human resources.
SunTrust is still choosing leadership in markets where the two companies overlap, primarily in Georgia, West Virginia, Virginia, and Tennessee. In a sign of how those moves could play out, SunTrust has announced internally that it will keep its Nashville market CEO, Warren "Woody" Woodring. Don Abel, Nat Commerce's Nashville president, would become head of commercial banking in the market.
