When Mellon Financial Corp. announced last month that it had retained an executive search firm to identify an eventual successor to chief executive Martin G. McGuinn, Wall Street began speculating about why.
Among the more tantalizing ideas to circulate was that Mellon was tipping its hand about possible sale.
Not so, Mr. McGuinn says.
"Mellon is not for sale," he said Monday in an interview on a range of topics related to the retention of Heidrick & Struggles.
He noted that he has always said he wanted to retire in 2007, when he will turn 65. Mellon decided to go public with the search as a heads-up to investors, he said.
"We just didn't want that kind of thing to leak into the marketplace, and then all of a sudden people would ask us, and then we would be seen as being on the defensive," he said. "So we thought: If we put everything in context, it would make it as straightforward as it is."
That the Pittsburgh company is looking outside does not rule out choosing one of its own for the job, Mr. McGuinn said. But he gave no names of Mellon executives who might be considered for the CEO post.
Mellon has $3.4 trillion of assets under custody. It is looking for someone with integrity, leadership skills, energy, commitment, and experience running a financial services business, Mr. McGuinn said.
"And obviously someone who is familiar with the asset management and asset servicing business," he added.
Analysts said two possibilities are former Mellon executive Christopher "Kip" Condron, the president and CEO of Axa Financial Inc., a New York unit of the French insurer Axa Group; and Robert B. Willumstad, the former Citigroup Inc. president and chief operating officer.
Gerard Cassidy of Royal Bank of Canada's RBC Capital Markets said that hiring Mr. Condron, 58, could lead to selling Mellon to Axa. Mellon and Axa Financial are both asset managers, Mr. Cassidy noted.
Mr. McGuinn said of Mr. Condron and Mr. Willumstad, "I would just say I'm glad that those two are examples of the high quality of candidates that I hope we're going to be able to review."
Tom McCrohan of Janney Montgomery Scott LLC said that Mr. Condron, who headed Mellon's mutual fund arm, Dreyfus Corp., and was the banking company's president and chief operating officer, was viewed as a possible successor before he left to join Axa in 2001.
"He is an institutional asset manager, and that seems to be the majority of Mellon's business model today and where they want to focus on going forward," Mr. McCrohan said. The company sold its retail banking arm in 2001, and in May it sold its human resources and investor services business to focus more on asset management and servicing.
An analyst who asked not to be named said that the 60-year-old Mr. Willumstad, who left Citi on Sept. 1 with the stated goal of becoming a CEO at another financial institution, "would clearly be up to the task."
"Citi was in all of those businesses in which Mellon operates," this analyst noted.
Axa Financial declined to comment, and Mr. Willumstad could not be reached. A spokesman for Heidrick & Struggles, which is based in New York, also declined to comment.
Some analysts say that it is more likely the company will promote one of several of its vice chairmen as Mr. McGuinn's successor. The vice chairmen include Stephen E. Canter, Dreyfus' current head; John "Jack" L. Klinck Jr., the president of Mellon's Investment Manager Solutions unit; David F. Lamere, the president of its private wealth management group; and Ronald P. O'Hanley, the president of its institutional asset management unit. All of them could be candidates, analysts said.
Mark Fitzgibbon of Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP said Mellon's senior vice chairman, Steven G. Elliott, 59, could get the nod.
"The board feels like they have the obligation to go outside and consider any and all candidates," Mr. Fitzgibbon said. But "there is still a good probability that they would select someone inside the company."
Mr. McGuinn said that though it was too early to tell where the next chief executive will come from, several internal candidates are "extremely well qualified."
"At this stage we haven't limited the possibilities," he said. "If anything, we're trying to expand the possibilities so that we can feel as confident as possible that we looked at every possibility - and then when we do make the right decision, we're confident about that decision."
