Amen! Home is where the heart is...
In a recent post [link] we took a look at some financial measures (loans, deposits, assets, capital, operating expenses), which compared the successful performance of SAFE versus its proposed merger partner from Washington State BECU.
Remarkably, BECU is not outperforming SAFE in any significant measure except in the most important one! BECU is far more costly to operate!
That doesn't seem to make sense. If the SAFE CEO and Board have thrown in the towel on their credit union, were there no other merger candidates available? What about large local CUs in California? No one was interested, or no one was asked?
Take a quick look at this list of California CUs. All are prospering in terms of loans, deposits, and assets; all are well-capitalized above the regulatory measure of 9%++. So, let's focus on the key "where-the-rubber-hits-the-road" measure "operating costs" (OpEx). Do any of these California CUs perform better than BECU's OpEx of 3.33% at December, 2025?
Golden 1 (Sacramento) Assets: $21B OpEx: 2.20% Br: 62SchoolsFirst (Tustin) Assets: $35B OpEx: 1.81% Br: 69
Patelco (Dublin) Assets: $10B OpEx: 1.84% Br: 37
First Tech (San Jose) Assets: $30B OpEx: 2.83% Br: 56
San Diego County (S. D.) Assets: $10B OpEx: 1.84% Br: 44
Redwood (Santa Rosa) Assets: $10B OpEx: 2.28% Br: 21
Logix (Valencia) Assets: $10B OpEx: 1.84% Br: 37
Star One (Sunnyvale) Assets: $10B OpEx: 0.73% Br: 7
All the @$10+ billion asset CUs in California operate at a significantly lower costs to members than BECU! Threw in the number of branches as a bonus, since that was claimed as one of the advantages of the SAFE/BECU merger. Question is : "Would SAFE members prefer to have 50 or 60 more branches in California or a new branch in Tukwila?"
😎 If the SAFE CEO and Board feel they can no longer lead; perhaps rather than just give it all away, they should consider leaving their heart in San Francisco... or, y'know, finding their way to San Jose.
"...they should consider leaving their heart in San Francisco... or, y'know, finding their way to San Jose."
ReplyDeletefirst they will play/ pretend they are the good stewards of the members money ... and then they will cash out leaving them high and dry...
Excellent post and great question - no one else interested or no one else asked? Even if members decide the BECU merger is acceptable, that doesn't mean it was the best option, and that really raises the bar on the Board's duty (and potential liability) if there were viable alternatives not considered, or they were considered but the criteria and diligence used to determine which was the best option wasn't sound. That would raise questions like - did the other CU's offer board seats that pay 125,000 a year? Hard to believe there weren't at least discussions with some of these other CU's. What a great question that would be for the CEO at the upcoming annual meeting.
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