Southern Community Financial Corp. in Winston-Salem, N.C., has split the roles of chairman and chief executive.
The $1.6 billion-asset company said that F. Scott Bauer will remain its CEO and will take on the additional title of president. William Ward Sr., a professor of orthopedic surgery, was named Southern Community's chairman.
Jeff Clark, who had been the company's president, was named chief commercial banking officer and will retain many of the responsibilities he had held in his prior role.
Southern Community also said it split the roles to "establish clearer lines of reporting between itself and the company's management." Southern Community also said that Clark is still Bauer's eventual successor, adding that it gave Bauer the president's title to remove "any doubt to outsiders that he remains clearly in charge of the day-to-day operations of the company."
Southern Community had separated the roles of chairman and CEO when it opened in 1996, though Bauer was named chairman five years later. "Our management team understands the significance and importance of this decision; we know in the end it will make us a stronger company," Bauer said in the release.
This summer, Southern Community
The company has been making progress, reporting back-to-back profitable quarters and has earned $161,000 through the first nine months of this year. Nonperforming assets at Sept. 30 fell 22% from a year earlier. Its Tier 1 leverage capital reached 8.76% at Sept. 30 compared to 7.42% at the end of last year.
