Associated Banc-Corp President and CEO Philip Flynn is planning to retire at the end of the year, the company announced Thursday.
Associated, of Green Bay, Wis., said it is searching for Flynn’s successor and is considering candidates inside and outside the company. Flynn will run Associated until a new CEO is named and plans to be available as an adviser afterward.
Flynn, 63, joined Associated in 2009 after spending 30 years at Union Bank in California.
He took over Associated in the midst of the financial crisis, when the company was reeling from mounting losses on commercial real estate and construction loans.
On his watch, the company’s assets increased from $23 billion to $35 billion on 31. He spearheaded three acquisitions during his tenure, including whole-bank deals for Bank Mutual in Brown Deer, Wis., in 2018 and First National Bank in Staunton, Ill., last year. In 2019, Associated bought 32 Wisconsin branches from Huntington Bancshares, adding $850 million in deposits and $134 million in loans with the transaction.
Flynn is also credited with implementing “a strong customer-focused strategy that has delivered consistent profitability and positions the company for long-term, sustainable success,” Associated Chairman Jay Williams said in a Thursday press release.
When he joined the company, Flynn and his team began building out a lucrative mortgage business that has become one of the biggest in Wisconsin. Mortgages make up about one-third of the company’s total loans.
Flynn also served on a number of corporate boards, including that of the Green Bay Packers, one of the few publicly traded companies in professional sports.
Flynn had been in discussions with the board about his retirement “for some time,” he said on a conference call Thursday. He indicated that with it was time to make the announcement as the economic picture was becoming clearer after he spent most of last year guiding Associated and its customers through the coronavirus pandemic.
“We are very well positioned at this point to really support the economic recovery, so making this announcement now in the face of what we think is an improving [2021] makes some sense,” Flynn said.
Associated also reported fourth-quarter results on Thursday.
Its net income fell 7% from a year earlier to $67 million.
The company’s “potential problem loans” declined by 4% from a quarter earlier to $282 million, as some consumers and businesses that had fallen behind on payments earlier in the year regained their footing. Still, total troubled debt is 75% higher than it was a year ago.
