Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 23, 1993 TAG: 9304230179
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL HOWES STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Sound odd? It is.
But then it's not every day President John Georgius is quoted by Dow Jones News Service as saying the company expects to report earnings of $1.07 per common share - when it actually expects the numbers to come in between $1.15 and $1.20 per share.
So the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank, which last month acquired Dominion Bankshares Corp., took the unusual step of releasing in-house projections to combat any negative effects on Wall Street.
"First Union issued the earnings estimate at this time following a wire service report of a lower earnings estimate," said the statement, issued Thursday. The estimate does not include expected gains in merchant banking business, and assumes stability in interest rates and the economy.
The company also took pains to reassure investors that its most recent acquisitions - Washington-based First American Metro Corp. and Georgia Federal Bank - should prove a less-significant drag on earnings than had been projected. Earlier estimates projected a 13 cents per share dilution.
A company spokesman said Georgius's response to a question on second-quarter earnings was misinterpreted by an Atlanta-based reporter. And rather than rely on a wire service correction the next day, the company decided to make its own national press statement.
The bank, with total assets of $63 billion, reported earnings of $1.17 per share for the quarter ended March 31. The second quarter earnings, if on target, would dramatically outpace last year's second-quarter performance of 78 cents per common share.
In other news, First Union officials in Roanoke told employees that on Thursday that John Francis - a longtime Dominion executive who headed the community banking group for First Union National Bank of Virginia - has resigned, effective May 7.
Francis will become an executive vice president for Raleigh, N.C.-based First Citizens Bank, and will be posted in Greensboro, N.C. Francis could not be reached for comment.
According to an internal memorandum distributed to the Virginia management committee, Francis will be replaced by Zack Parrish, a First Union veteran who came to Roanoke in February to head First Union-Virginia's corporate banking group.
Former Dominion executives close to Francis said the move appears to have been prompted by First Citizens. "I don't think he was looking," said one former executive who asked not to be identified. "The bank is getting a talented, energetic banker."
Parrish came to Roanoke from First Union's Georgia bank, a company spokesman said. Benjamin Jenkins III, First Union-Virginia's president and chief operating officer, ran the Atlanta-based bank before taking over the company's new Virginia-Maryland-Washington operation late last year.
***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on April 28, 1993.
In a story Friday detailing First Union Corp.'s response to a wire service report, a company spokesman said a reporter had misinterpreted remarks made by President John Georgius concerning the company's second quarter-earnings.
First Union released its projected earnings for the second quarter "following a ...report of lower earnings estimate," the company said, a day after the initial report by the Dow Jones News Service. The news service also reported the company's earnings estimate.
"We stand by our original story," Howard Hoffman, an assistant news editor for Dow Jones, said Monday. "And we reported the subsequent projection by First Union as the current one."
Hoffman disputed First Union's contention that an Atlanta-based reporter had misunderstood Georgius's comments.
Memo: Correction