Edward E. Crutchfield, 82, banker whose deals reshaped the industry, dies

Edward E. Crutchfield, a banker who grew a small North Carolina bank into one of the nation's largest on a deal-making spree that earned him the nickname “Fast Eddie” and helped build Charlotte into a national financial center, died on January 2. at his home in Vero Beach, Florida. He was 82.

His death was confirmed by his son, Elliott Crutchfield, who said his father had dementia.

When Mr. Crutchfield graduated from business school in 1965, he took a job as a credit analyst at First Union bank in Charlotte, NC. It was the lowest-paying job he was offered, but he thought he could advance more quickly at a smaller bank. He sensed opportunities, he told his family and colleagues, at the bank and in the region.

Both premonitions paid off. At the age of 32, just seven years after joining First Union, he became president of First Union. He was believed to be the youngest person in the country to hold that title at a major bank. His ambitions were broadened by a 1985 Supreme Court ruling legalizing interstate banking. The decision gave Mr. Crutchfield, by then his bank's chairman and CEO, the power to swallow up rival banks and failed thrifts, transforming First Union into a super-regional bank with thousands of branches across the Southeast.

“I just had a feeling that what turned out to be the Sun Belt would be a good bet,” he told The New York Times in 1983, shortly before he began his buying spree. “I think we're rubbing the rabbit's foot the right way.”

By the time Mr. Crutchfield retired in 2000, First Union had acquired more than 90 banking and lending companies, becoming the nation's sixth-largest bank by assets. In 2001, First Union merged with Wachovia and adopted the other bank's name. Wells Fargo bought Wachovia in 2008, during the crisis that reshaped the financial industry.

Mr Crutchfield's impression lives on in the major role Charlotte continues to play in the banking industry. Wells Fargo has 27,000 employees there, more than at its San Francisco headquarters.

“Ed just had a vision where he thought we could be one of the best and one of the largest banks in America, and he grew toward that,” said Austin Adams, who served as First Union's chief information officer for 17 years .

Edward Elliott Crutchfield Jr. was born on July 14, 1941 in Dearborn, Michigan, and grew up in Albemarle, NC, a rural town about 40 miles from Charlotte. His father worked for the FBI before becoming a lawyer and district judge. His mother, Katherine (Sikes) Crutchfield, was a high school teacher.

He attended Davidson College on a football scholarship, graduating in 1963, after which he earned an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His marriage to Nancy Robson ended in divorce. In 1996 he married Barbara Massa, director of corporate communications at First Union. In addition to his son, he is survived by a daughter, Sally Davis, both children from his first marriage; a stepdaughter, Elizabeth Howze; his wife; and five grandchildren.

At First Union he quickly established himself as a go-getter. Shortly after joining the bank, he founded the municipal bond department. In 1968, at the age of 26, he was asked to solve serious problems in the bank's credit card business. He kept the back office open 24 hours a day and brought a cot to sleep on. “I felt I should be there to welcome the night shift and the 8 a.m. shift,” he told The Times.

As a manager, he had a reputation for not delegating, a style he had to adapt as the bank grew. But when he took over a new bank, one of the first things he did was take over the bank's investment portfolio. He was also quick to rebrand new acquisitions and developed what Mr. Adams called “the nation's fastest integration model.”

“It never took more than 11 months from the time we announced the transaction until we converted all the systems, changed the signage, the products, the branches, everything,” Mr. Adams said.

Mr. Crutchfield, according to his son, was “a typical Southerner” who loved hunting, fly fishing and living far away from Wall Street. “He relished our underdog status and enjoyed seeing Charlotte outgrow its rivals as much as First Union outgrew other banks,” the younger Mr Crutchfield said.

When he set his sights on a target, he didn't like to be defeated. To convince Malcolm McDonald to sell Signet Banking Corporation to First Union for $3.25 billion in 1997, Mr. Crutchfield joked, “I just kept stacking billion-dollar bills on the table until Mac said yes.”

There were stumbling blocks. In 1998, First Union bought CoreStates Financial for $17 billion—a record six times the bank's book value and at the time the largest bank merger in U.S. history—and then lost 20 percent of CoreStates' two million customers in an effort to the path away from human counters and towards telephone and internet services. One of Mr Crutchfield's last purchases, from home loan lender the Money Store, turned into a money pit and was soon closed by his successor.

Ken Gepfert, a First Union employee who worked as Mr. Crutchfield's speechwriter for several years, said his boss once recounted a conversation he had with his father, who was also a devoted fisherman, about his acquisitive tendencies. Bank.

“His father said, 'Son, I hope you don't catch them faster than you can tie them up,'” Mr. Gepfert said. “Ed knew that First Union had to expand quickly to survive in the interstate banking industry. But privately, he always said one of his biggest fears was that First Union would grow too big and lose its community-oriented roots.”