Nearly nine months after the sudden resignation of its president and chief operating officer, Synovus Financial Corp. named a successor Monday.
Kessel D. Stelling Jr. now becomes second in command of the Southeastern banking firm, filling the position vacated by Fred Green III, who left the company in May 2009 with no reason given by the company for his departure.
“With deep roots in Georgia and long-standing relationships with regulators and other key state officials, Kessel is one of the most highly respected bankers in the state and is well-known as a visionary leader in the banking industry,” said Richard Anthony, Synovus chairman and chief executive officer.
Stelling, 53, comes to the corporate headquarters in Columbus from the Atlanta market, where he served as a regional CEO for Synovus.
He also was president and CEO of Alpharetta-based Bank of North Georgia, a Synovus affiliate and the seventh-largest bank in Georgia with $4.6 billion in deposits, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The bank has 43 branches and does business in 17 counties in metro Atlanta.
“I love banking,” Stelling said Monday. “I’ve been doing it since I was in high school. I say this not to brag about it. I’ve done just about every job in a bank, so I think I really do have a good understanding of how important everybody at every level of the organization is to our success.”
Stelling’s first banking job was in the printing department at Georgia Railroad Bank in Augusta, working a summer high school stint there in 1973.
“I cleaned printing presses my first summer,” he said. “We printed our own forms, and I cut forms. I wasn’t smart enough to operate the printer, but I knew how to clean ’em.”
Now, as the No. 2 executive at Synovus, Stelling will be called upon to finish cleaning up a devastated real-estate loan portfolio that has led to more than $2 billion in charge-offs over the last two years for the company.
Stelling has led Bank of North Georgia since its 2006 merger with Riverside Bank, a small community bank he started a decade earlier.
In June 2008, Synovus tapped him to oversee the Atlanta area operation just as that market was screeching to a halt due to the housing meltdown.
“At first we thought this was just a little higher tide than usual,” Stelling said of the Atlanta banking community’s initial perception of the downturn. “Then we thought that maybe this was a full moon or something, and then all of a sudden it’s a tsunami.”
Over the last several quarters, Synovus has worked those bad assets off its books, selling developed lots and other properties at cut-rate prices. Aside from Atlanta, areas in Florida and South Carolina have been particularly troublesome for the company.
In Atlanta, Stelling said his bank is now ditching about a third of its total non-performing assets in any given quarter. The toxic pie, he said, is getting smaller.
“We’re not there yet. Nobody’s ready to declare victory in Atlanta,” he said. “But I’ll tell you, I’m proud to be associated with this team up here because there’s not any quit in anybody. And I think that’s what’s gotten us through it.”
It’s that can-do attitude, and a certain dose of charisma, that should work well for Stelling as he handles the day-to-day activities at Synovus, said Chris Marinac, who has known the banker 10 years and is intimately familiar with Synovus and its financial problems.
Marinac, managing principal and director of research with FIG Partners in Atlanta, said Stelling’s skills should be particularly valuable as the company consolidates its 30 banking charters to one over the next year or so, eliminating some of the complexity in running the bankholding firm.
“It’s going to take a person with some stamina and charisma and an ability to work with people across all different parts of the organization to pull off what they are trying to do,” Marinac said. “I think that Kessel can certainly rise to the occasion. I actually have a lot of confidence in him.”
The Synovus analyst also pointed out it was important to get someone in the president’s office to take on the myriad of duties. Stelling’s job will include strengthening lending practices, managing risk, growing deposits and fostering good relations with customers and employees.
“Like any organization, you need to have leadership,” Marinac said. “When you have a void because of Fred Green leaving, you need to have another leader step in his shoes. I think Kessel is a natural person to take that on.”
Green’s departure last May came as the firm’s financial losses were mounting. The company posted a $1.47 billion loss in 2009. That followed a $582 million loss the year before.
Synovus on Monday did not disclose how much Stelling will make as the new president and chief operating officer. Green, his predecessor, took home cash compensation of $562,100 in his last full year with the company, with his total package topping $1.3 million, including stock options.
Synovus said Donald D. Howard, currently a regional CEO and chairman of the board at Bank of North Georgia, will become president and CEO of the bank, which has more than 600 employees. Howard helped form the bank in 1994.
