Zions Bancorp. in Salt Lake City is splitting its Colorado banking unit into two business lines.
Vectra Bank, a $2.8 billion-asset company in Denver, is to divide its operations into wholesale banking and community banking, Bruce Alexander, its president and chief executive said in an interview last week.
Wholesale banking, to be led by Kirk Monroe, would encompass corporate real estate, corporate banking, and treasury management. Community banking, to be led by Denver-market president Scott Page, is to comprise business functions of all 40 branches statewide.
With the reorganization under way, "we've got all the right people and target markets," Mr. Alexander said.
The changes are designed to better align the two divisions and to improve internal communication, he said.
Vectra also named Amy Graden market president for the Denver-south area and Nan Hinton market president for Denver-north. Brad Martin now is Front Range community banking division manager, overseeing the Denver and Pueblo/Colorado Springs markets. Front Range encompasses Denver, Boulder, Longmont, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo.
"We've been looking to get the players in the right seats," Mr. Alexander said.
Mr. Alexander said the five executives moved into their new posts in February but that the company plans to complete the split during the next 12 months.
James Abbott, an analyst at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., said that dividing the operations may help the company better determine a growth strategy and improve reporting on the local level. "Any time you can get a cleaner number on the components of your business, the better you know if you're doing well or not."
Vectra Bank was cobbled together from 21 banks through a series of acquisitions in the late 1990s by Zions, which has $53 billion of assets. Vectra now employs 550 people.
In 2000, Mr. Alexander took over the Colorado subsidiary, which is concentrated mainly in the Denver area but has smaller operations elsewhere in the state. For the first couple of years he focused on recruiting people for human resources, marketing, credit administration, and rebuilding infrastructure.
By 2003, he had shifted to refocusing Vectra on small and middle-market businesses along with hiring bankers and relationship managers, and developing a sales management program.
"We think it's jelling now," Mr. Alexander said.
The Colorado franchise has been outperforming some of Zions' other markets that have been hit hard by the real estate market slump, such as California and Arizona, Mr. Abbott said.
Tony Davis, a bank analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. Inc., said that the moves were designed to better segment an organization that "was sort of bolted together." Zions has taken similar steps in its Texas and Utah operations, he said. "As Zions gets bigger I would expect you will see them do more of this," he added.
Mr. Alexander said that he expects loan growth of 10% to 15% and deposit growth of 5% to 10%, depending on what the economy does. Last year, the bank reported loans of $2 billion, up 14% from the year earlier, and $1.7 billion in deposits, up 4% from a year earlier. Vectra will add revenue-producing employees as needed.
"In this environment if you're not constantly tweaking, you're not keeping up with what's going on," he said.
