Great American’s Chairman Collapses Onstage at Meeting

Robert Kemper, chairman of San Diego-based Great American Bank, collapsed onstage Thursday morning during a special shareholders meeting to approve the troubled savings and loan’s sale of its California branches to Wells Fargo Bank for $492 million.

Kemper was admitted to Sharp Memorial Hospital and was undergoing tests late Thursday afternoon. The hospital described Kemper’s condition as good.

Kemper, 61, was answering questions from shareholders at about 10:25 a.m. when he stopped in mid-sentence, pitched forward, then slumped to the floor, grabbing a nearby table to break his fall. The 500 shareholders looked on in stunned silence until several began calling out for an ambulance.

Kemper quickly regained consciousness and was taken from Symphony Hall in San Diego to the hospital.

He told those surrounding him that he wanted to remain at the meeting but was persuaded by paramedics to go the hospital.

The meeting continued after Kemper’s departure, with 94% of shareholders’ votes cast in favor of the sale, which thrift executives said was the only alternative to a government takeover.

The sale of the branches, which would give Wells Fargo the dominant depository market share in San Diego County, is still subject to approval by federal regulatory agencies including the Office of Thrift Supervision.

However, Great American officials say they expect the first phase of the sale involving San Diego, Orange and Riverside county branches to be approved and completed by Nov. 30. The second phase, involving the rest of its statewide branches, should be complete by mid-1991.

Once complete, the sale will leave Great American with 81 branches in Arizona, Washington and Colorado, and mortgage banking operations in California. Terms of the deal prohibit Great American from opening retail branches or from collecting deposits in California.

At the meeting’s close, Great American announced the resignations of Jim Schmidt and Roger Lindland as directors and said former chairman Gordon Luce and senior executive vice president Marc Sandstrom will also soon resign from the board. Luce, Lindland and Schmidt had previously resigned or announced their intentions to resign from executive jobs at Great American.

Sandstrom said in an interview that Great American had regained more than half of the $1 billion in deposits that fled earlier this year as the institution’s financial problems deepened. Total deposits, which by May had fallen to $8.1 billion from the $9.1 billion at the end of 1989, have since rebounded to about $8.6 billion.

The $492 million sales price is subject to certain contingencies but Sandstrom said that Great American would receive the full amount if the deal were to close now.

A former Wells Fargo vice chairman, Kemper assumed the reins of Great American in July and has since worked to put together a business plan to save the severely capital-deficient thrift from a government seizure.