TD's Bharat Masrani to Succeed Ed Clark as CEO Next Year

By Brian Browdie April 03, 2013, 9:47 a.m. EDT 2 Min Read

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Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD) has ended any mystery about its succession plan.

Bharat Masrani, 56, who currently serves as chief executive of its U.S. banking unit, will succeed Ed Clark, 65, as CEO of the parent company when Clark steps down from the post next year, Toronto-Dominion said Wednesday.

Clark announced plans to retire as CEO on Nov. 1, 2014. He will remain a director through the annual meeting in 2015.

Toronto-Dominion, also known as TD Bank Group, has assets of $807 billion and a rising profile in the U.S.

Masrani in an interim step will be promoted to chief operating officer of the parent company this July and report to Clark. Masrani has held a series of posts since joining the Toronto company 26 years ago. He served as Toronto-Dominion's chief risk officer before taking the helm of the company's U.S. arm.

"Ed's stellar leadership has driven unprecedented growth and success at TD," Chairman Brian Levitt said in a press release. "As we look to the future, the board is confident that Bharat's leadership, breadth of experience and global business insight will serve him well."

Mike Pederson, head of wealth management, will succeed Masrani as head of the U.S. banking arm.

Tim Hockey, who heads the Canadian banking, auto finance and credit card businesses, will add the wealth management unit to his portfolio.

Toronto-Dominion has taken big steps in recent years to expand south of the Canadian border.

TD, the 12th-largest U.S. bank with roughly $219 billion in assets as of Dec. 31, bought a majority stake in Banknorth Group of Portland, Maine, in 2004. It bought Commerce Bancorp four years later.

In 2011 it paid $6.4 billion for Chrysler Financial and announced plans to build a regional hub in South Carolina after buying the $12 billion-asset South Financial Group in Greenville the previous year.

Since then, Toronto-Dominion has continued to beef up its American operations. It has roughly 1,300 branches from Florida to Maine and employs roughly 27,000 people in the U.S. Last year it announced plans to double its presence in New York City by opening more than 50 branches there over four years.

TD also has expanded its U.S. wealth management and credit card businesses. In December it agreed to buy Epoch Holding, an asset manager based in New York City for $688 million in cash. In March it bought Target Corp.'s consumer credit card portfolio for $5.7 billion.

Clark denied in March that Toronto-Dominion was interested in buying Citizens Financial Group from Royal Bank of Scotland after RBS said it would sell 25% of its U.S. operations to appease regulators.

Brian Browdie