Good afternoon,
Today we learned that Marvin Schoenhals formally retired from Wilmington-based WSFS Financial Corp. after three decades.
He most recently served as a member of the board of directors after stepping down as chairman a few years ago.
As board chair and CEO Roger Levenson noted in a social media post announcing his retirement, Schoenhals came to WSFS to “save the bank.”
He achieved that goal and much more in getting WSFS back to the basics of good banking.
Schoenhals put together a team that had its eye on the future, building out an automatic teller-cash filling system while investing in and selling off businesses in areas that included reverse mortgages and an online bank.
That body of knowledge helped guide WSFS into the future as once-mighty Wilmington Trust succumbed to bad loans. At one point in the turnaround of WSFS, Wilmington Trust owned shares of WSFS. The former Wilmington Trust is now part of Buffalo, NY-based M&T.
WSFS acquired smaller banks in Delaware and the Delaware Valley and focused on fee-based financial services businesses that were the secret sauce at Wilmington Trust.
Unlike many transformative CEOs, Schoenhals focused on a succession plan to carry the company into the future.
Fast forward to the end of the decade, and WSFS under Roger Levinson, who succeeded Schoenhals and Mark Turner in the corner office made the bold move of acquiring Philadelphia-based Beneficial, a bank nearly the same size as WSFS.
Some of the savings from combining the two banks were plugged into technology upgrades needed to keep pace with industry behemoths and fintechs
This year, WSFS announced plans to acquire Bryn Mawr Trust, which the tech upgrades will aid.
WSFS remains a mid-sized player in a banking industry that is not done with consolidation. It is not out of the realm of possibility that the publicly traded company could one day be acquired.
One thing we do know. Without Skip Schoenhals moving here from Michigan 30 years ago, WSFS would have long ago joined the ranks of fallen flags like Delaware Trust, Bank of Delaware, and Beneficial.
Click here for a 2018 earlier column on WSFS and Schoenhals. – Doug Rainey, chief content officer.
