Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!enterpoop.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.misc From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: City's new top banker vows fair treatment Date: Wed, 25 Nov 92 16:20:05 EST Message-ID: Lines: 77 \SE C;MONEY \HD City's new top banker vows fair treatment \BY David R. Sands \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES Speaking in a thick Carolina accent, the area's most powerful banker yesterday tried to reassure a gathering of Washington's business and political elite that he doesn't view the city as a financial backwater. In a sign of the times, Hugh L. McColl Jr., president and chief executive officer of Charlotte, N.C.-based NationsBank, was the keynote speaker at yesterday's annual meeting of the Greater Washington Board of Trade, the 103rd such gathering of the region's most powerful business group. With last year's buyout of C&S-Sovran Corp. and this year's $200 million investment in MNC Financial Inc., Mr. McColl's NationsBank now claims the largest banking market share in the Washington area, with strong rumors afloat that the $118 billion bank is hungry for more. But despite fears that local projects and local borrowers will get short shrift from the out-of-town banking giant, Mr. McColl said, "The lending pipeline here is as active as in any state where we operate." Noting that NationsBank can't withdraw from the market if it hopes to hit new profit and growth goals, Mr. McColl added, "We must lend money, we will lend money, we want to lend it here, and - yes, it's true - we want to be paid back." Board of Trade officials were cautiously upbeat at yesterday's meeting, conceding that the region's economic hardships have taken their toll, but preferring to focus on the positive. The organization, which had to tighten its own belt during the year as dues income suffered, "could have chosen to curse the darkness," said outgoing President Gerald Lowrie, a senior vice president at AT&T. "Instead, we chose to light candles that would illuminate our path out of the recession," he said. Among the area's strengths, he said, were a lower jobless rate than the national average, strong median income, the high-tech and hospitality industries, and the prospects of more powerful economic presence and greater national visibility as the Baltimore and Washington markets converge. Despite the economy's bumps, the business group still proved it can attract an A-list of local political notables. Among those breaking bread with the business leaders yesterday were Maryland Gov. William Donald Schaefer, D.C. Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly, Virginia Sen. Charles S. Robb, and the mayors, county executives and council chiefs from the city of Alexandria and Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince George's, Howard and Frederick counties. Shareholder activist Evelyn Y. Davies also worked the crowd, buttonholing journalists and the occasional unsuspecting CEO. Under the hard-charging Mr. McColl, NationsBank has been one of the leaders in the ongoing sharp consolidation of the banking industry. The NationsBank CEO said the Darwinian struggle means "that only a small handful of cities will claim the headquarters of a major banking company when all is said and done. NationsBank archrival First Union Corp., also of Charlotte, recently agreed to buy Roanoke's Dominion Bankshares Corp., Virginia's third-biggest bank, and has set its sights on D.C.-based First American Bankshares Inc. as well. Mr. McColl acknowledged that local businesses are "still sizing up all us newcomers - and that's certainly understandable." "But I believe the location of the headquarters will be less and less important - certainly less important than the economic strength of a given market," he said. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM