Huntington closes one of three Florida WM offices

FWR Staff

19 February 2009

Closure part of OH bank's move to eliminate $100 million in costs this year. Huntington National is closing its Heathrow, Fla., wealth-management office. That's the Columbus, Ohio-based bank's only Private Financial Group office in central Florida, and one of just three such offices in the state.

Shuttering the PFG office is part of a bank-wide effort at Huntington to trim $100 million in spending this year. The bank has also frozen all salaries at 2008 levels, cut all 2008 bonuses, suspended its policy of matching employee's 401 contributions, and it's in process of pink-slipping 500 employees.

Have a nice drive

Clients of the Heathrow office will have their accounts transferred to Huntington's PFG office in Palm Beach Gardens, a good 100 miles away.

Huntington lost $113.8 million last year. In July 2007, on the eve of the present financial crisis, the bank's stock was trading at about $22.50 a share; in intraday trading yesterday it was down to $1.27, a decline of 94.4%.

Stephen Steinour -- formerly a managing partner at Boston-based alternative-investment manager CrossHarbor Capital Partners and before that president and CEO of Providence, R.I.-based Citizens Financial Group -- became Huntington's chairman, president and CEO about a month ago, replacing Thomas Hoaglin, who had led the bank in those capacities since 2001.

Huntington provides retail- and commercial-banking services in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, other financial services in Arizona, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey and international-banking services through its headquarters in Columbus and limited-purpose offices on Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands and in Hong Kong. -FWR

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