Renasant taps insider as next CEO, Aspiration spins out new brand

April 26, 2024 2:26 PM

Mississippi's Renasant names its next CEO; environmental fintech Aspiration Partners spins out its consumer brand; the OCC adds five weeks to comment period for Capital One-Discover merger; and more in the weekly banking news roundup.

Renasant in Mississippi taps insider to become next CEO

Renasant in Tupelo, Mississippi, announced Tuesday its next chief executive officer.

The $17 billion-asset Renasant said in a news release that it designated President and Chief Operating Officer Kevin Chapman to become CEO in May 2025. That's when he would succeed current CEO Mitchell Waycaster, who plans to retire. Waycaster will continue in his role as executive vice chairman. Chapman has been president and COO since May 2023. Previously, he was the company's chief financial officer. He joined Renasant in 2005.

"Kevin is a dynamic leader with a keen understanding of both corporate banking strategy and the financial services marketplace," Renasant Executive Chairman Robinson McGraw and Waycaster said in a joint statement. "We believe Renasant will be in great hands with Kevin guiding the Company, and we look forward to a bright future under his leadership." — Jim Dobbs

Climate-focused fintech Aspiration spins out its consumer brand

The environmental fintech Aspiration Partners, which encompassed both financial products and an enterprise carbon business, is splitting up its brand. On Tuesday, the company announced that Tim Newell, who previously held C-suite roles at Aspiration Partners, had reached an agreement to spin off Aspiration's consumer financial services brand into a separate company that would live under the Aspiration brand name and offer sustainability-focused checking, savings and investment accounts. "While that strategic shift towards serving large enterprises opened up new areas of growth for Aspiration Partners … it also resulted in competing priorities with the company's original consumer-focused mission," wrote Newell in a blog post on Aspiration's website. The new Aspiration brand will be operated by Newell's financial technology company Mission Financial Partners. Coastal Community Bank in Everett, Washington, will continue to provide Aspiration's banking services.— Miriam Cross

OCC extends comment period for Capital One-Discover merger

Opponents of Capital One's proposed acquisition of Discover Bank will have an extra five weeks to voice their concerns, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said this week. The agency extended the comment deadline, originally set for April 22, until May 31, for interested parties to submit their stances on the contentious, $35 billion deal.

If approved, the combined entity will become the largest credit card lender in the country. Capital One posits that moving business onto Discover's payment rails will also ramp up competition with dominant networks Visa, Mastercard and American Express. Critics counter that the impact would be nominal, instead limiting competition and restricting options for subprime borrowers.

It's still unclear whether or not the merger will go through; it still awaits approval from the OCC and the Federal Reserve. Even if the banks get a rubber-stamp from the agencies, the Department of Justice could sue to block the deal based on antitrust concerns. — Catherine Leffert

Ex-Goldman Sachs executive joins Truist’s board of directors

Truist Financial welcomed a new board director this week during the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company's annual meeting. Laurence Stein, who worked at investment banking giant Goldman Sachs for 27 years, was elected by Truist shareholders to a one-year term. Stein, 56, will join 12 other directors who were reelected to their posts. He fills the seat vacated by Christine Sears, who did not seek reelection. Stein held several jobs at Goldman during his career, including chief operating officer of the company's asset and wealth management division. Truist recently reduced the size of its board from 21 to 13. — Allissa Kline

Goldman’s Australia equities head said to join Jefferies

Goldman Sachs Group's head of equities in Australia is leaving to join Jefferies Financial Group. Mario Argyrides resigned from the firm on Monday for a role at Jefferies's Australian unit, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named as they weren't authorized to speak publicly. Goldman Sachs hasn't named a replacement for the Sydney-based banker, the person said.

Spokespeople for Goldman Sachs and Jefferies declined to comment.

Earlier Monday, the Australian Financial Review reported that Argyrides was leaving Goldman, and said Mike Johnson, head of sales at Jefferies, had also resigned.

Argyrides had been sole head of the business following the resignation of former co-head, Ben Clifford. The pair had joined the firm from Macquarie Group together in 2017. — Harry Brumpton, Bloomberg News

UBS hires Barclays banker Lynch for technology dealmaking

UBS Group hired Barclays Managing Director Sean Lynch to bolster its investment banking team advising technology companies, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Lynch — who covers companies including Uber Technologies and Tesla — has worked at Barclays since 2013, Finra records show. Menlo Park, California-based Lynch, who worked in leveraged finance earlier in his career, advised on the issuance of about $1.7 billion in convertible notes for Uber last year.

Representatives for UBS and Barclays didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. Lynch didn't respond to a request for comment.

A slew of Barclays bankers have joined UBS since the lender named Marco Valla co-head of global banking last year. The hires include Laurence Braham, who is the firm's global co-head of technology investment banking, Richard Casavechia, who is UBS's head of global banking in the Americas and Richard Hardegree, a vice chairman within technology investment banking. — Gillian Tan and Katie Roof, Bloomberg News

Russian court freezes JPMorgan assets under $440 million claim

A St. Petersburg court froze the Russian assets of JPMorgan Chase pending consideration of a lawsuit from the country's second-largest bank that seeks to recover about $440 million.

VTB Bank PJSC filed the suit against JPMorgan and its subsidiaries in the Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region on April 17, according to the court's database. While court documents didn't detail the main basis for the suit, they said VTB had requested provisional steps because the defendants were "taking measures to withdraw their assets" from Russia while the state-controlled lender was seeking to recover about $440 million from JPMorgan.

The court agreed to freeze the money in JPMorgan's Russian accounts, its stake in a Russian subsidiary bank and property rights related to some trademarks. It set the next hearing in the case for July 17.

JPMorgan declined to comment. VTB didn't immediately respond to a request to comment. — Bloomberg News

Stripe brings back crypto payments on platform with stablecoins

Stripe is bringing back crypto payments by allowing merchants using its platform to accept stablecoins for online transactions.

"There's been a lot of technical improvements happening in crypto," John Collison, co-founder and president said Thursday at the payments processing company's annual conference in San Francisco. The option should be available this summer, he said.

Transaction speeds have increased in crypto, while fees have gone down as crypto finds "real utility," according to Collison. He said that stablecoins, which are cryptocurrencies pegged to a fixed asset like the dollar, are becoming "more stable" and demonstrated a crypto payment on Stripe using Circle's USDC token during his presentation. Stablecoins have continued to gain traction in crypto and fintech, with PayPal Holdings introducing its PYUSD stablecoin last year.

Stripe enabled bitcoin payments about 10 years ago, with Collison noting that the experience back then was "pretty terrible." The service ended in 2018 in part due to a lack of customer demand. —Hannah Miller, Bloomberg News