RankingBanking 25 - Flipbook - Page 18
16
An Ambitious
CEO Drives
Columbia’s
Growth
By Naomi Snyder
C
lint Stein, the 53-year-old CEO
expectations for the fourth quarter of 2023.
of Columbia Banking System in
Still, the deal propelled $52 billion Columbia
Tacoma, Washington, admits he’s
toward the top of Bank Director’s 2025 Rank-
rarely content. “It’s just how I’m
ingBanking two years in a row for its asset size
wired,” he says. “We don’t just sit
category. It ranked No. 2 among banks above
on our hands and do nothing.”
$50 billion in assets for 2024, right behind No. 1
Stein, logging into a video call in
June, had just announced plans to
ranked East West Bancorp. For 2023 results, it
ranked No. 5 for banks $50 billion and more.
acquire a second bank in three years. The first, a
Now, Columbia is proposing a second transfor-
notoriously difficult merger of equals with Umpqua
mative deal to acquire $18 billion Pacific Premier
Holdings Corp., had dragged on for well over a
Bancorp in Irvine, California, for $2 billion in
year pending regulatory approval before its 2023
stock. Combined, the deals will more than double
completion. Then, investors sent the stock plum-
the size of the bank in three years to over $70 bil-
meting about 30% after Columbia missed earnings
lion in assets and create a franchise that stretches
