DATE: Saturday, October 11, 1997            TAG: 9710110982

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY TOM SHEAN, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   57 lines

WACHOVIA TAPS HEAD FOR HAMPTON ROADS CENTRAL FIDELITY VETERAN WILL DIRECT REGIONAL ACTIVITIES

Wachovia Corp., the North Carolina banking company preparing to acquire Central Fidelity Banks Inc. and Jefferson Bankshares Inc., has tapped a veteran Central Fidelity officer to head its Hampton Roads operations.

Wachovia said Friday that W. Jeffrey Dyckman, executive vice president and head of Central Fidelity's eastern region, will become executive in charge of the Norfolk-based region.

Dyckman, who also oversees Central Fidelity's commercial banking activity in Hampton Roads, has been with the Richmond-based bank since 1971.

Separately, Central Fidelity said it began distributing to shareholders the proxy statements with details about its planned merger with Wachovia. Its shareholders are scheduled to vote on the transaction Nov. 21.

Shareholders of Charlottesville-based Jefferson are due to vote on that company's merger agreement Oct. 22.

Wachovia struck a merger agreement with Jefferson in mid-June. Two weeks later, it lined up the deal with Central Fidelity. Wachovia has said it expects to complete both transactions by year-end.

Central Fidelity and Jefferson said Friday that details about job reductions and possible branch consolidations in Hampton Roads were not yet available.

``There is still a lot of work yet to be done'' on the consolidation, Donald W. Fulton Jr., a Jefferson spokesman, said.

Central Fidelity has about 750 employees and 60 branches in Hampton Roads. Jefferson has 14 branches and 94 employees in the region. Wachovia has a single branch in Virginia - in downtown Norfolk - with about two dozen employees.

The two mergers will provide Wachovia with a major presence in Virginia and the second-largest share of bank deposits in the state.

In Friday's announcement Wachovia said its Virginia banking activities will be organized into three regions. In addition to the eastern region, there will be a western region based in Charlottesville and a central region that will take in the Richmond area and Northern Virginia.

Wachovia has already designated a Jefferson operations center outside Charlottesville to be its check-processing center for Virginia. The 113,000-square-foot facility had been scheduled to open in September after nearly two years of construction.

Wachovia also has assigned certain information-processing jobs at a Central Fidelity facility in Lynchburg to an outside provider, M&I Data Services.

In a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Wachovia said it expects the restructuring costs of the two mergers to total about $174 million.

Lewis N. Miller, Central Fidelity's chairman and chief executive officer, had been named to the same posts for Wachovia's banking activities in Virginia.

O. Kenton McCartney, currently president and chief executive of Jefferson Bankshares, will become president of Wachovia's Virginia operation and executive in charge of its western region.

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