BRADENTON, Fla. — Birmingham, Ala.-based Regions Financial Corp. corporate trust director Kevin Kirby is the new chairman of the American Bankers Association’s corporate trust committee.
The appointment was announced Sunday at a meeting of the trust committee in Miami prior to the start of the 2006 ABA Capital Markets Seminar for Corporate Trust Professionals, which concludes today, said Cris Naser, the ABA’s staff liaison to the committee.
Kirby is taking the gavel from long-time committee chairman William Berls, senior vice president at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York, who stepped down.
The ABA trust committee advocates on behalf of the corporate trust industry on issues of concern to trustees.
“This appointment to the corporate trust committee is significant to us because it further solidifies our emergence as a key player in the corporate trust industry,” Kirby said in a statement. He is also an executive vice president with Regions Morgan Keegan Trust, the fiduciary wealth management division of Regions Financial.
Kirby’s appointment comes as Regions Corporate Trust rises in national corporate trust rankings.
Based on the number of issues, Regions was ranked sixth among the nation’s bond trustee banks during the first quarter of 2006, according to Thomson Financial. It ranked ninth based on dollar volume.
Regions, with $523.7 million in trust business through 24 issues in the first quarter, shared sixth place with UMB Bank, which did $381.9 million in trust business, also on 24 issues, according to Thomson . Last year, Regions was ranked ninth with $1.18 billion.
The bank ranked 20th just three years ago, but has concentrated on expanding its trustee services, bank officials said.
Regions recently opened full-service corporate trust offices in Houston; Richmond; Charlotte, N.C.; and Columbia, S.C., and added four new employees in its Birmingham and Nashville corporate trust offices.
With this latest expansion, Regions Bank now has 12 corporate trust offices in nine states.
