Bank’s new owner to cut jobs

About 190 positions to be abolished

Gold Banc Corp. will eliminate more than a quarter of its work force, or about 190 positions, in connection with its merger with Marshall & Ilsley Corp. of Milwaukee.

A spokeswoman for Marshall & Ilsley, better known as M&I, said about 80 percent of the positions are in the Kansas City area and the rest are in Florida.

Leawood-based Gold operates more than 30 Gold Bank locations in metropolitan Kansas City; Tulsa, Okla.; and Bradenton and Sarasota in Florida.

The M&I spokeswoman, Patty Cadorin, said most of the affected employees are involved in back-office support operations duplicated at M&I.

“However, the merger will have no impact on the employees in customer service roles,” she said.

The affected employees were informed of their fate Wednesday. Cadorin said they would have the opportunity to apply for other positions within the merged company.

Those who don’t will receive severance and other forms of financial assistance, Cadorin said. She declined to specify the terms of their severance packages.

Cadorin said the terminations would become effective at various times, depending on the nature of the positions and when the merger takes place.

M&I, the largest banking company in Wisconsin, with about $46 billion in assets, announced in November that it would acquire Gold for about $18.50 per share, or approximately $714 million.

The merger is expected to be completed in the first or second quarter of this year.

Shares in Gold’s stock closed Thursday at $18.25. The shares were trading around $15 when the merger was announced.

Gold Banc has about $4 billion in assets. The company and its subsidiaries have 723 employees, compared with about 14,000 at M&I.

At the time of the merger announcement, M&I chairman and chief executive Dennis Kuester said that some Gold positions would be eliminated but that it was too soon to say how many.

“When you merge with a fully robust company like Gold, there will be overlaps,” he said.

After the merger, Gold Bank will be reflagged as M&I Bank. Mick Aslin, Gold’s president and chief executive, will step down from those posts but will join M&I’s board of directors.

Aslin could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Aslin, as well as other Gold officers and directors, will reap financial rewards from the merger. Aslin owned 158,389 shares of Gold stock at the time of the merger announcement. Under the terms of the merger, he will receive $2.93 million for those shares in M&I cash and stock.

What are people saying about mortgages today:

Rates on 30-year mortgages edged down last week to a seven-month low. Mortgage-giant Freddie Mac reported Thursday that 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages fell to 6.3 percent, down slightly from 6.31 percent two weeks ago. It put rates at the lowest level since they were at 6.24 percent the first week of March.

Bank of Hawaii, Central Pacific Bank, Territorial Savings Bank and Wells Fargo Home Mortgages all cut their 30-year mortgage rates to 5.75 percent this week.

Most people think of a mortgage as a means to an end. After all, you buy a house, not a home loan. But a mortgage is much more than the path to homeownership. It is a financial instrument that must be managed, just like any other financial investment.