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For Fish, a long ride to the top of N.E. banking
By Robert Gavin, Globe Staff, 5/5/2004 Nearly two decades after he lost the race to lead New England's biggest bank, Lawrence K. Fish may well have achieved it -- or at least come close. In the 1980s, as a top executive at the Bank of Boston, he was edged out of the line of succession, and moved to California. He returned a few years later to try to save the teetering Bank of New England, only to preside over the greatest bank failure in the region's history. His job after that: Leading a small Rhode Island bank that barely cracked the state's top 10 list. Now that small Providence bank, Citizens Financial Group Inc., is poised to become one of the nation's biggest bank holding companies, following yesterday's announcement that Citizens will buy Charter One Financial Inc. of Cleveland. Once the proposed merger is completed, Fish will find himself at the head of a bank with nearly $130 billion in assets and operations in 13 states. And with the absorption of rival FleetBoston Financial Corp. into its parent, Bank of America Corp. of Charlotte, N.C., he should also find himself at the apex of New England banking. "Larry's been a very aggressive acquirer, and as far as I can see, he's certainly put in the management systems in place to do it successfully," said Marshall Carter, the former chief executive of State Street Corp., which sold a small banking business to Citizens in 1999. "I think that's a plus for Boston. We're going to have another major national bank here." Citizens, the US subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland, among the world's biggest financial companies, has been on growth trajectory since Fish became chairman in 1992. His first acquisition was Plymouth Five Cents Savings Bank, and that began a buying spree that extended Citizens' reach throughout New England, and then into the Middle Atlantic states. Through it all, chief executive Fish kept his vision of Citizens as a local bank, structuring it to serve the particular needs of particular communities. Even as it got bigger, Fish left local banking decisions in the hands of the local bankers, and showed he was adept at merging operations of Citizens acquisitions. For example, following Citizens purchase of the retail and business banking operations of Pittsburgh's Mellon Financial Corp., it bucked industry trends by gaining market share. Typically, banks lose customers after an acquisition. "We are focused on localness," Fish said in an interview last year. "Our business model is local. And we are just going to stay at it." Fish, who holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School, began his banking career in 1972 at the First National Bank of Boston, running operations in Brazil and Asia, and eventually heading New England banking. He is deeply involved in the region's civic and philanthropic activities, and a leader in the business community. He is a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, an overseer of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and has been involved in a variety of charities, including Rosie's Place, which provides shelter and services to homeless women, and the Vietnamese Community Center, which aids refugee and immigrant families. He's long been a supporter of immigrant issues, saying they help fuel the economy. He often boasts that Citizens employees speak more than 40 languages. Robert Gavin can be reached at rgavin@globe.com. Beth Healy of the Globe staff contributed to this report. This story ran on page C3 of the Boston Globe on 5/5/2004.
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