CREDIT & RISK MANAGEMENT

Listen Carefully to Lessons We Can Learn from Our Chief Credit Officer
By Howard Gould, Carpenter & Company

Any doubt among your board that something’s changing in the credit cycle? We’ll be treasuring the value of a strong chief credit officer as we move forward – so be sure to give them your ear. Here are the results of a recent CCO survey that helps inform us of their attitudes. <read more>

With nonperforming assets rising, real estate markets softening, and the credit markets reeling, your policies and procedures surrounding the allowance for loan losses may be critical to your near term performance.  <read more>

Commercial Real Estate Concentrations Attract New Enforcement Activity
By Maureen Young, Bingham McCutchen LLP

In a time when the residential mortgage markets are causing more than enough trouble, the regulatory agencies are directing renewed attention to concentrations in commercial real estate (CRE) portfolios. Institutions would be wise to re-visit the Guidance and the Part 365 regulations and strengthen their risk management practices, especially their management information systems for measuring and monitoring CRE portfolios against the supervisory loan-to-value limits, before the agencies next coming knocking.  <read more>

Strategic Issues

Strategy 101, Part VIII - Strategies for Achieving Quality Growth
By Cass Bettinger, Cass Bettinger & Associates

Strategy 101: Part VIII will revisit “the quality growth imperative” and will introduce the two primary sources of quality asset and revenue growth; enhancing the net present value (NPV) of existing customer relationships and attracting profitable new customer relationships. Six critical success factors for enhancing the NPV of existing customer relationships will then be discussed.  <read more> 

Succession Planning Within the Strategic Planning Process
By John Oliver, Laurel Management Systems

We regularly hear the term succession planning but regrettably directors often give their attention to only one narrow area of this process – CEO replacement. While this is an essential part of the director’s role it falls far short of true succession planning.  
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Making the Most of Your Strategic Planning
By Philip Smith, Gerrish McCreary Smith, PC

Different organizations have different thoughts about strategic planning. This article will explore the best practices and common pitfalls seen in the planning process and provide recommendations on how to make the most of the planning session giving practical examples.  <read more>

M&A Environment 

Completing accretive transactions is a major goal of most merger and acquisition deals. How does one measure accretion? By utilizing low cost cash, most deals can be accretive to earnings per share, but at what cost to the capital structure of the acquirer? How dilutive is the transaction to tangible book value per share?  <read more>