CEOs, Boards Must Prepare Now for Merger Question

Over the past year we have lead sessions with CEOs and chairmen concerning mergers and growth. This caused me to read the article titled “Merger Clarity”, by Myriam DiGiovanni in the November 7, 2007 edition, with great interest. The article presented credit union board leaders’ ideas and solutions concerning how boards should view and position themselves for future merger opportunities.

To quote the article “The general consensus at the roundtable was that either there is a growth policy in place or you have to merge because you can’t stay stagnant.” In two of this year’s sessions on mergers and growth we asked a few questions that received unsettling response rates (credit unions between $50 million and $2 billion). The first question was: How many of you have growth plans in place? About 50% said they did, but most of the plans were limited to strategic branching plans. The second question was: How many of you have been contacted by another credit union or third party with an offer to merge into a larger credit union? Over 85% raised their hands, even the large credit unions.