Beth Ardoin, communications director for the Lafayette-based bank, says the move is part of the bank’s effort to spread critical operations over several cities and geographic areas — the bank boasts branches in six states and mortgage reps in 12 states — in order to avoid service interruptions amid natural disasters or other emergencies.
“Following hurricanes Katrina and Rita, banks with centralized operation sites, particularly in the South, were unable to service their clients,” Ardoin says. “Having multiple operation sites, which we had at that time, allows us to provide continuous support to our clients across our 12-state footprint. For example, when one area faces severe weather issues, the bank continues to operate without a hitch.”
The expansion of IberiaBank’s Birmingham operations is also attributed in part to the growth that IberiaBank has experienced in that market since it purchased Birmingham-based Century Bank in a 2009 failed bank acquisition, Ardoin says. IberiaBank’s website lists six branches in Birmingham, and Ardoin says the bank is opening another branch there this year.
The 15 New Iberia employees have the option of transferring to Birmingham, Ardoin says, or applying for another open position within the company.
“Birmingham does offer a great deal of banking talent, since several large banks have been headquartered there over a long period of time,” Ardoin says. “However, we also have ‘back-office’ personnel in other locations, such as other cities across Louisiana, Arkansas and Florida. Again, our primary goal is to provide our clients uninterrupted banking services at all times and having key personnel located in various geographic locations helps us achieve that objective.”
It’s highly likely that the largest city in Alabama is indeed home to an experienced pool of banking talent, as Birmingham served as the one-time headquarters of four big banks — SouthTrust, AmSouth, Compass and Regions — according to the Higley 1000, a website that ranks and profiles the most affluent neighborhoods in the U.S. But when the housing bubble and subsequent recession struck banks across the globe, three of the four large Birmingham banks merged with other financial institutions, Higley reports, which leaves only one big bank that’s based in Birmingham: Regions, the 10th largest in the country.
MAY 21 Gambit columnist Clancy DuBos writes about the Mother's Day shooting, and how the stages of shock and blame and healing mirror those traveled by the same city following Hurricane Katrina. The city will recover, just as it did following the storm, by reaching out to help the people injured most seriously by the event, DuBos writes. It's how we heal, he says.
MAY 21 Here's a post on the Advocate (but buried on a subpage, not on the front) that reports something Louisiana Voice reported some time ago: a top DOE official lives in Los Angeles and "commutes" to Baton Rouge. The positioning of the story caused a stir on Facebook Monday, with several posters asking if the Advocate was covering someone's hiney. Sentell's stories on DOE are notoriously soft, and this one is no different: don't expect any hard questions in here.
MAY 21 Here's another post from blogger Tom Aswell about the "course choice" program. He's already reported on kids being signed up without their consent or knowledge, and has more here: For example, he tells of a six-year-old who was signed up for high school Latin. He also digs a little deeper into the sister companies of the main one operating in Louisiana; all of them seem to have complaints against them. Stinky.
MAY 21 Given the 80 percent cut in higher ed funding since he's been in office, it's clear Gov. Jindal would rather give tax cuts to out of state companies than have a functioning system, blogger Dayne Sherman argues in this post. The cuts have been such a disaster, Sherman says, that it will take 30 years to fix what's been broken. He says he believes the aim is to shut down most of the schools before Jindal leaves in 2016.
MAY 21 Blogger CB Forgotston says there are too many elections in Louisiana, and they're costing us too much money. The proof is in the pudding: turnout for most of these nonsensical pollings gets worse and worse, CB opines, even as millions of dollars that could be spent on health care or higher ed go down the tubes. The legislature must take action to stem the tide of pointless elections, he says.
MAY 21 Here's an interesting investigative piece by WVUE on the retirement benefits of some Jefferson Parish public employees. According to the story, the taxpayers are paying 100 percent of the retirement contributions of employees who started work prior to a certain date in April 1986 -- and have done for more than 30 years. It costs the parish millions annually, and might not be legal, the story reports.
MAY 21 This post on Bayou Buzz provides insight from Louisiana's intrepid pollster, Bernie Pinsonat, on the winners and losers from this year's legislative session. But to hear Bernie tell it, there's almost nuttin but losers: Jindal, the Republican party, the Fiscal Hawks all get big goose eggs in his win column.
MAY 20 This post on The Lens takes a look at a huge (either $500K or $250K) bill that one NOLA charter now has for school lunches. The RSD says the charter group didn't fill out the proper paperwork for federal reimbursement, but the story details how the RSD didn't ensure the people running the charter had the proper training, despite requests from hapless charter employees trying to fill out forms. Either way, somebody's asleep at the wheel.
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