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Stepping Up to the Plate
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Business New Haven
2/23/1998
By: BNH
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Good old New Haven Savings Bank doesn't make headlines very often. And unlike so many of its competitors in the hype-driven world of late '90s banking, one gets the feeling that it doesn't even much mind maintaining a lower profile.
Nevertheless, New Haven Savings made major news February 19 when it announced the establishment of a charitable foundation, which the bank intends to fund with ten percent of its pre-tax profits annually.
The bank's endowment contribution should reach nearly $4 million as soon as this April, NHSB President Charles L. Terrell said at the announcement press conference, and the foundation will begin annual disbursements of $500,000 throughout its 20-town service area beginning this year.
The bank has already distributed a “mutual dividend” of $1.8 million to establish the New Haven Savings Bank Foundation. It will work in partnership with the Community Foundation of Greater New Haven on initiatives to promote health, education, social services, youth services and the arts.
That is a bold move, certainly, by one of Connecticut's last remaining mutual savings banks. And it couldn't come at a more timely juncture in greater New Haven's history.
As the region's corporate base dwindles, there -fewer faces around the table to exert community leadership. This is certainly true in banking, in which '80s “angels” such as Connecticut Savings and Connecticut National are now just a memory.
But that trend holds across the corporate board. SNET's century-plus-old tradition of civic leadership is in doubt now that its management has agreed to sell out to a Texas-based telecom giant, SBC Communications. And, just two days before the NHSB announcement, the Wall Street Journal reported that a Minnesota-based auto-parts maker had launched a hostile bid to acquire Echlin Inc. - our region's sole remaining Fortune 500 firm.
Times such as these are enough to make pessimists ask, 'Will the last company to leave New Haven please turn out the lights?'
But then you look at New Haven Savings Bank, which not only isn't going anywhere, but which has now stepped boldly into the breech to fill a deepening leadership void, and done so not just with words, but with deeds.
A decade ago, “bold” is not a word other bankers would have associated with New Haven Savings. Under Terrell's leadership the bank has always steered a conservative course, avoiding the kind of speculative real estate schemes that ultimately brought some of its rasher rivals to their knees.
The get-rich-quick bankers might have laughed at New Haven Savings then. It would be tempting to ask, “Who's laughing now?” - except that Charlie Terrell isn't an I-told-you-so type of guy.
What are our leadership expectations for a banking industry that is generating record profits in Connecticut, and should we be shy about articulating them? Fleet Bank alone earned - earned - about $400 million from Connecticut operations alone last year. Industry-wide, Connecticut banking profits last probably approached three-quarters of a billion dollars. With ability to help goes a responsibility to do so in a reasonable manner.
We ought also to note that the New Haven Savings announcement is merely the culmination of history of good-deed-doing across the board, from participation in the mayor's Livable Cities Initiative to sponsoring the annual New Haven Road Race (in which Terrell himself is a perennial participant). A list of non-profits and charitable institutions which in the past year have benefited from New Haven Saving's largess runs to two pages, with two columns, single-spaced.
We applaud New Haven Savings for having the vision to exert major philanthropic leadership in a community which so desperately needs more leaders. And we can all admire the wisdom that has enabled the bank to act with such generosity.
A very nice bank, indeed.
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