Corestates

CoreStates Financial Corp., the parent company of Philadelphia National Bank and Hamilton Bank of Lancaster, yesterday announced a restructuring of its top management, starting with the office of president and chief operating officer. Terrence A. Larsen, who has been the executive vice president responsible for asset-liability management and portfolio, will become president and chief operating officer and become a director, effective June 1. Five vice chairmen will report to Larsen, and they will become members of a new managing committee headed by Larsen.

CoreStates New Jersey National Bank is planning to close nine branch banks in South Jersey Jan. 8 as a result of its acquisition of First Peoples Bank of New Jersey and the New Jersey National Bank. "The reason for the closings is their location and proximity to the other branches," Judy Sands, a senior vice president with CoreStates, said yesterday. "One of the banks (in Vineland) is only two-and-one-half blocks from another branch and is right on the same street. " CoreStates merged with First Peoples and New Jersey National on Sept.

The somber mood that normally prevails during a bank's annual meeting was briefly pierced yesterday by Core-States Financial chairman G. Morris Dorrance Jr. Dorrance, answering a shareholder's question, vented his frustrations over the Pennsylvania House of Representative's failure to approve interstate banking legislation. Core- States owns Philadelphia National Bank. "We as a banking industry have been attempting to get that approval," said Dorrance, who has made no secret of CoreState's desire to expand aggressively across state lines in the region.

G. Morris Dorrance Jr. spent his last day on the job yesterday as chairman and chief executive officer of CoreStates Financial Corp., the parent company of Philadelphia National Bank. Dorrance, who led the banking organization for 18 years, retires today and will be succeeded by Terrence A. Larsen, 41. Dorrance, who has been CoreStates' president since June 1986, turned 65 this week. "I find myself recognizing that it is time (to go) and the time is right," said Dorrance. "I couldn't be happier at the way things look for the institution I admire so much and have been part of for so long.

Tom Schuler won the third annual CoreStates U.S. Pro Cycling Championship road race last year in a record 6 hours, 4 minutes, 43 seconds. But Schuler, a two-time U.S. Olympian cyclist, says not to expect that kind of performance from anyone this year. "We're going to see a different type of race this year," Schuler, 31, said yesterday. "We're going to have the top European teams in the race this year, and they are going to make it a European-style race. And that means more team riding.

CoreStates Financial Corp., parent of Philadelphia National Bank, reported record operating profits for the final quarter and year of 1987. Terrence A. Larsen, who took over this month as chief executive officer after the retirement of G. Morris Dorrance, attributed the gains to strength of the company's basic banking business and benefits from its October 1986 acquisition of New Jersey National Bank. Even while producing record earnings, CoreStates kept reducing its portfolio of loans to less-developed countries.

CoreStates Financial Corp., the regional banking company based in Philadelphia, is among the bidders for York Bank & Trust Co., an executive of Allied Irish Banks PLC, one of the bidders, said yesterday. Allied Irish said York Bank, which has $1.4 billion in assets at 26 offices, would fit well into the market of its First Maryland Bancorp subsidiary. Midlantic Corp. (OTC), of Edison, N.J., put York Bank up for sale as part of efforts to raise capital. CoreStates said it couldn't comment on the report.

Two top executives of CoreStates Financial Corp. handed in their resignations Tuesday in what the company termed a move to "flatten the organizational structure. " The resignations of Bipin C. Shah, chief operating officer, and Gregory C. Dillett, chief finance and administration officer, were said to be part of a planned restructuring. Asked whether the resignations were voluntary, Terrence A. Larsen, CoreStates' chairman, said yesterday they were "mutually agreeable. " The moves were part of a management shuffle that included control of the MAC system, the region's largest automated-teller system.

CoreStates Financial Corp. has agreed to purchase Buypass the System Inc. of Atlanta and a California sister company, Manta Systems Inc., in a transaction that would make CoreStates the nation's largest third-party provider of electronic point of sale services. These are computer-aided devices that enable merchants and financial institutions to quickly check a prospective customer's credit record before completing a sale or loan. CoreStates' major competitors in the field are not other financial institutions, but retailers such as J.C. Penney and Sears, which sell the service used primarily in their own stores to others.

An interview published Monday with Live Arts Festival/Philly Fringe artistic director Nick Stuccio wrongly implied that there once had been a connection between PNC Bank and CoreStates. The Inquirer wants its news report to be fair and correct in every respect, and regrets when it is not. If you have a question or comment about news coverage, contact assistant managing editor David Sullivan (215-854-2357) at The Inquirer, Box 8263, Philadelphia 19101, or e-mail dsullivan@phillynews.com .

G. Morris Dorrance Jr., 88, of Villanova, retired chairman of CoreStates Financial Corp. and a civic activist, died of a stroke Thursday, Aug. 11, at Bryn Mawr Hospital. In 1983, Mr. Dorrance became chairman of CoreStates, which was created that year when PNB Corp. and Hamilton Bank of Lancaster merged. Three years later, he received the Silver Award from the Wall Street Transcript, an investment newspaper, for his "definitive long-term strategic plan executed meticulously and decisively.

Halfway into a 29-year, $40 million naming-rights deal, the South Philly arena that's home to the NBA Sixers , NHL Flyers , and a lot of high-priced pop-music shows is getting its fourth new name. The 21,000-seat auditorium, formerly named after the vanished CoreStates, First Union , and Wachovia banks, is now the Wells Fargo Center , president Peter Luukko of owner Comcast-Spectacor said Tuesday. What had been Wachovia is under new owners and yet another new logo, sign, and color scheme.

WACHOVIA Bank has abandoned two potential new commercial hubs in North Philadelphia. The areas support dozens of corner stores, clothiers and lunch counters. While they aren't Northern Liberties or Passyunk Avenue, they do well keeping neighbors supplied with day-to-day needs. But Wachovia has just up and walked out, closing two branches after promising this was just what they wouldn't do. One of the areas they're leaving is the Fairhill business district at Germantown Avenue and Lehigh.

A jury said the former CoreStates Bank had behaved outrageously in seizing $1.7 million of someone else's money. Penalty: $337.5 million. The trial judge said that figure was too high. A $40.5 million penalty would do. The state Superior Court said that was still too high. It scratched the $40.5 million and ordered a new trial. And now, the state Supreme Court has trumped all those decisions. In a unanimous decision last week, the high court nullified a new trial and ruled that CoreStates, a predecessor to Wachovia, did nothing wrong in the first place.

Wachovia, Philadelphia's largest bank, has agreed to pay $2.05 million to settle an unusual U.S. Bankruptcy Court claim in which its predecessor, CoreStates, was accused of indirectly participating in a $5 million investment fraud. The settlement is expected to enable about 75 investors who were bilked in 1998 by fraud artist David Burry to recover about 20 cents on every dollar they lost. "I think it's a very good settlement," said Maurice R. Mitts, a lawyer who filed the claim seeking to hold CoreStates responsible for investor losses.

Veteran Philadelphia City Councilman Angel Ortiz will not return next year, but after 19 years on Council, don't count him out of politics. "I want to be in public service," he said during a recent interview at his Northern Liberties home. "I want to do something in terms of public policy. " What that something is remains to be seen. Word is that Ortiz, who turned 62 yesterday, will go to work for a Center City law firm. Ortiz, who in the early 1980s hosted a television show called Latinos in the Delaware Valley, is mum on his future plans except to say there may be law firms, foundations, public-policy institutes, even radio shows in his future.

Wachovia Bank, formerly First Union, has grown in the Philadelphia market for the first time since its rocky acquisition of CoreStates Financial Corp. in 1998, according to figures released yesterday by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Wachovia garnered $3.4 billion in new deposits in the 12 months ended June 30, raising its share of the eight-county metropolitan banking market to 23.7 percent. First Union bought Wachovia in September 2001 and adopted the Wachovia name.

First Union National Bank, soon to be Wachovia Bank, may ask the city that never forgets its place in history to give up a piece of its past. Five years after swallowing CoreStates Financial Corp and its predecessor, Philadelphia National Bank, the North Carolina bank is contemplating retiring the "PNB" signs atop the 25-story office building called One South Broad and replacing them with Wachovia signs. "It's an option we're looking at," said Barbara Nate, a First Union vice president.

The Flyers have played their last game in the First Union Center. And pretty soon, the Sixers will play theirs, too. No, the teams aren't going anywhere, and neither is the arena. Only the name will change. In a few months, the building that opened as the CoreStates Center in 1996 will be rechristened the Wachovia Center, its third name in seven years. Such are the perils of the naming-rights game. Names of businesses change, and sports facilities must follow. Even when companies don't go down the tubes, they get bought up, merge, and establish new identities.