NCUA-conserved WesCorp, now known as Western Bridge Corporate FCU, is following in the foosteps of its peer, Southwest Bridge FCU of Dallas, in forming a CEO-run advisory panel to help chart its next step.
Volunteers for the council are said to number more than 130 and are drawn from the corporate's Western states membership. They will begin work in January. NCUA has stressed that they will operate strictly in an advisory capacity to provide "direction to WesBridge on member preference for a long term solution."
Following the Southwest model, the WesBridge Advisory Council and its executive committee, also being organized, will "have no impact on running the business," an NCUA spokesman said.
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Meanwhile, members of the $19.5 billion WesBridge were taking part today in the last of a series of informational webinars and town hall sessions conducted during December to review service options in line with toughening new regulations governing corporates.
One member already invited to serve on the advisory council, David Chatfield, retired president/CEO of the California/Nevada Credit Union League and current head of a league-backed Corporate Realignment Task Force, forecast that "there will be some others from our task force that may be on the council as well."
Both the task force and Chatfield have suggested that mergers of California-based WesBridge and the other conserved corporates may be the ideal "system wide solution" bandied about by CUNA and other trade groups since NCUA's Sept. 24 seizures. Chatfield advocated two weeks ago that any of the three, Dallas-based Southwest, Members United Bridge of Warrenville, Ill. and WesBridge might be consolidated. "It may be that two of them might eventually become merged," he said.
Just how such a merger would square with plans already underway by another corporate, the $2.5 billion Georgia Central of Duluth, to pursue a consolidation as recommended by Southwest's Advisory Council was not entirely clear. The Southwest Advisory group had endorsed a Georgia Central/Southwest package, also subject to NCUA approval, to become effective next summer.
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