Nationsbank: Jack of all trades
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Nationsbank: Jack of all trades

Charlotte-based Nationsbank is now hot on the heels of Chase/Chemical and those global investment banks in Europe. But is the full-service ideal right for a house that grew by opportunistic acquisition, mostly of distressed or damaged goods? Philip Eade reports.

Thirteen years ago a tough-talking former US marine took charge of North Carolina National Bank (NCNB). Today, Hugh J McColl Jnr is one of the most talked-about bankers in America.


Through a series of bold and often ingenious takeovers, he has taken his bank - renamed Nationsbank in 1991 - from 29th to third-largest bank in the US (measured by market capitalization).


Nationsbank now threatens more than regional banking franchises in the southern US. Corporate finance, trading and investment banking are among the bank's fastest-growing business areas, accounting for roughly a third of its net income last year. Its rocket-shaped, 60-storey head office in Charlotte - the Taj McColl, as it is sometimes known - is symbolic of the challenge it poses to Wall Street firms in bidding for large corporate customers. Depending on how you measure it, Nationsbank now has one of the top two or three corporate client bases in the US.


Some aspects of Nationsbank already look more like an investment bank than the old NCNB. In areas such as loan syndication and corporate-debt underwriting, derivatives and foreign exchange, investment bankers are increasingly having to sit up and take notice of the North Carolina upstart.




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