ViewPoint Financial Group Inc. in Plano, Texas, said Thursday that Gary Base, its longtime president and chief executive, will retire at the end of the year.
Base has led ViewPoint for 25 years and will be remembered as the architect of one of the largest and most successful credit union-to-bank conversions in history.
Community Credit Union had roughly $120 million of assets when Base became CEO and about $1 billion of assets when it converted to ViewPoint Bank on Jan. 1, 2006. Now, ViewPoint is a 100% stock-owned company with $3 billion of assets and 23 branches in the Dallas area. Last quarter its earnings jumped 142% from a year earlier, to a record $6.6 million.
ViewPoint's chairman, James McCarley, said in a press release that the company would name Base's successor within the next few months.
