Billy Beale is stepping down as CEO.
A changing of the guard is in the works at Richmond’s biggest bank after the company looked outside its home state to ultimately find a native Virginian to take its top job.
Downtown-based Union Bank & Trust announced Wednesday that longtime CEO Billy Beale will retire from his posts as head of the bank and its parent company by Jan. 2, 2017.
He’ll be succeeded by John Asbury, a Radford native and graduate of Virginia Tech and William & Mary who most recently led a bank in New Mexico through a large merger.
The changes will occur in phases with Asbury beginning his employment with Union Oct. 1 as president of Union Bankshares, the bank’s publicly traded holding company, and president and CEO of the bank itself.
Beale, who’s been CEO for 25 years, will stay on as chief executive of the holding company through Jan. 2, at which point he’ll become executive vice chairman of the company’s board of directors through the end of March. He’ll then take on a two-year consulting role with the bank.
“I have seen the bank through the Great Recession, through two significant and difficult mergers in 2010 and 2014,” Beale said on Wednesday. “The bank is on solid footing…so there’s a lot of good structural reasons that now is a good time to make a change.”
Union’s C-suite shuffle is years in the making and is a slight departure from the path of succession the bank initially began several years ago. In 2012 it shifted some top executive roles to let internal candidates begin to gain more experience to potentially take the reins.
John Asbury will start his tenure as Union Bank CEO on Oct. 1.
Beale said those plans evolved in the years since, particularly after Union’s acquisition of StellarOne Bank in 2014.
“That really caused the board to step back and reassess what it was looking for in the next CEO, both from a skill set and also what their work experience was,” Beale said.
The bank’s rapid approach toward the $10 billion asset threshold, which will take it up a weight class operationally and in the eyes of regulators, was also a factor in its search.
“(The board) clearly wanted somebody that had been involved in a bank bigger than $10 billion, Beale said.
In December Union hired executive search firm Korn Ferry to begin the hunt for a CEO. Lots of names were whittled down to two main candidates, with Asbury emerging the victor.
Asbury, 51, began his banking career at Wachovia in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Management stints at Bank of America and its predecessors followed, along with an executive position at Regions Financial, a $126 billion company. He most recently led First National Bank of Santa Fe into a merger with Sunflower Financial of Kansas, a deal that is expected to close next year and will create a $4 billion institution.
“Union represents what I had hoped to accomplish with the First Bank of Santa Fe platform over time,” Asbury said.
Asbury worked at banks in Virginia for about a decade in the 90s and said he remembered Union from his time here and was impressed by its track record and its geographic reach around the state. He said landing a gig in Virginia wasn’t a priority for him once the discussions with Union began.
“I can honestly say I did not take the job because it returns me to my home state,” he said, but added that it did help sweeten the deal.
Also helping seal the deal is the employment agreement Asbury signed with Union this week. It calls for an initial annual base salary of $650,000, a $300,000 cash signing bonus, and stock awards and other perks valued at eight figures. He’ll also get reimbursements for relocation expenses, real estate commissions related to the sale of his current home and up to six months of temporary living expenses.
Beale, upon his full retirement from the company and after his stint as executive vice chairman, will begin a two-year consulting agreement that will pay him a monthly fee equal to one-twelfth of his annual base salary, which last year was $679,000, along with club dues and access to an office.
Beale, a Texas native, joined Union in 1989, becoming its CEO in 1991. The bank at the time was headquartered in Bowling Green and had 15 branches and $180 million in assets.
Twenty-five years later it’s the largest community bank headquartered in Virginia with $8.1 billion in assets gathered through both internal growth and a series of acquisitions, including deals with First Market Bank in 2010 and StellarOne in 2014.
With his 67th birthday approaching, Beale said the time was right for the change.
“I think it just makes sense for Union to do this now,” he said. “We can bring a younger leader in who has a little longer vision.”
And Beale, who helped Union strike such statewide branding deals as having its name attached to Virginia Tech athletics, said he didn’t want to be like a football coach who stays at the helm too long.
“I think there is a little bit of an art to a CEO succession process,” he said. “There are CEOs that tend to stay too long and it usually doesn’t work out too well for their bank.”
Billy Beale is stepping down as CEO.
A changing of the guard is in the works at Richmond’s biggest bank after the company looked outside its home state to ultimately find a native Virginian to take its top job.
Downtown-based Union Bank & Trust announced Wednesday that longtime CEO Billy Beale will retire from his posts as head of the bank and its parent company by Jan. 2, 2017.
He’ll be succeeded by John Asbury, a Radford native and graduate of Virginia Tech and William & Mary who most recently led a bank in New Mexico through a large merger.
The changes will occur in phases with Asbury beginning his employment with Union Oct. 1 as president of Union Bankshares, the bank’s publicly traded holding company, and president and CEO of the bank itself.
Beale, who’s been CEO for 25 years, will stay on as chief executive of the holding company through Jan. 2, at which point he’ll become executive vice chairman of the company’s board of directors through the end of March. He’ll then take on a two-year consulting role with the bank.
“I have seen the bank through the Great Recession, through two significant and difficult mergers in 2010 and 2014,” Beale said on Wednesday. “The bank is on solid footing…so there’s a lot of good structural reasons that now is a good time to make a change.”
Union’s C-suite shuffle is years in the making and is a slight departure from the path of succession the bank initially began several years ago. In 2012 it shifted some top executive roles to let internal candidates begin to gain more experience to potentially take the reins.
John Asbury will start his tenure as Union Bank CEO on Oct. 1.
Beale said those plans evolved in the years since, particularly after Union’s acquisition of StellarOne Bank in 2014.
“That really caused the board to step back and reassess what it was looking for in the next CEO, both from a skill set and also what their work experience was,” Beale said.
The bank’s rapid approach toward the $10 billion asset threshold, which will take it up a weight class operationally and in the eyes of regulators, was also a factor in its search.
“(The board) clearly wanted somebody that had been involved in a bank bigger than $10 billion, Beale said.
In December Union hired executive search firm Korn Ferry to begin the hunt for a CEO. Lots of names were whittled down to two main candidates, with Asbury emerging the victor.
Asbury, 51, began his banking career at Wachovia in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Management stints at Bank of America and its predecessors followed, along with an executive position at Regions Financial, a $126 billion company. He most recently led First National Bank of Santa Fe into a merger with Sunflower Financial of Kansas, a deal that is expected to close next year and will create a $4 billion institution.
“Union represents what I had hoped to accomplish with the First Bank of Santa Fe platform over time,” Asbury said.
Asbury worked at banks in Virginia for about a decade in the 90s and said he remembered Union from his time here and was impressed by its track record and its geographic reach around the state. He said landing a gig in Virginia wasn’t a priority for him once the discussions with Union began.
“I can honestly say I did not take the job because it returns me to my home state,” he said, but added that it did help sweeten the deal.
Also helping seal the deal is the employment agreement Asbury signed with Union this week. It calls for an initial annual base salary of $650,000, a $300,000 cash signing bonus, and stock awards and other perks valued at eight figures. He’ll also get reimbursements for relocation expenses, real estate commissions related to the sale of his current home and up to six months of temporary living expenses.
Beale, upon his full retirement from the company and after his stint as executive vice chairman, will begin a two-year consulting agreement that will pay him a monthly fee equal to one-twelfth of his annual base salary, which last year was $679,000, along with club dues and access to an office.
Beale, a Texas native, joined Union in 1989, becoming its CEO in 1991. The bank at the time was headquartered in Bowling Green and had 15 branches and $180 million in assets.
Twenty-five years later it’s the largest community bank headquartered in Virginia with $8.1 billion in assets gathered through both internal growth and a series of acquisitions, including deals with First Market Bank in 2010 and StellarOne in 2014.
With his 67th birthday approaching, Beale said the time was right for the change.
“I think it just makes sense for Union to do this now,” he said. “We can bring a younger leader in who has a little longer vision.”
And Beale, who helped Union strike such statewide branding deals as having its name attached to Virginia Tech athletics, said he didn’t want to be like a football coach who stays at the helm too long.
“I think there is a little bit of an art to a CEO succession process,” he said. “There are CEOs that tend to stay too long and it usually doesn’t work out too well for their bank.”
Union is by far the best bank for small businesses in Richmond; hands down. Hopefully this change will not alter how they work with small business clients.
Wow, I just mentioned the other day my hopes that Towne Bank would swallow up Union Bank because they need new leadership and a move into the 21st century and here comes the CEO retiring. Well hopefully this is for the best. Union needs to advance or merge with a bank like Towne Bank that can best serve us shareholders.