Atwater’s former bank among state’s weakest
by Michael C. Bender | May 29th, 2009
Riverside National Bank, where state Senate President Jeff Atwater worked as a regional president, is again ranked among the weakest banks in the nation, according to a new listing from TheStreet.com. The bank, based in Fort Pierce, was also identified as deeply troubled and given one of the lowest safety ratings last month from BauerFinancial. Our story about that here.
Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, left the bank in February, but the association still could haunt his upcoming campaign to be the state’s chief financial officer. And he may not be alone in needing to distance himself from the troubled banking industry. The state Republican Party has made a point of identifying Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink, the state’s current CFO, as “banker Alex Sink.”
But Atwater doesn’t appear too worried. His campaign Web site touts his three decades of banking among his most important qualifications. “With more than 25 years of community banking experience, his background provides him with unique insights in banking, insurance, finance, fiscal responsibility and the burden that taxes and regulations place on small businesses and families,” the site says.
Rick Wilson, Atwater’s campaign consultant, said Atwater was in charge of finding the bank new clients in Palm Beach and Broward counties and did not make decisions about the bank’s investments. TheStreet.com ’s list, released Wednesday, ranks “undercapitalized” banks and savings and loans. Riverside was listed as the weakest of the seven Florida institutions that made the roster.
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May 30th, 2009 at 8:06 am
[...] strategy against former Bank of America Executive Alex Sink and her bid for the Governorship with this news about Jeff Atwater, the presumed front-runner for the GOP nomination for Florida [...]
May 30th, 2009 at 9:53 am
Makes him highly qualified in Florida politics. Ranks him right in there with Jeffrey Hernandez, Bill McCollum, Charlie Crist, and the other professional public servants.
May 31st, 2009 at 9:54 pm
So, are you convicting Atwater of something here? In banking, the title of regional vice president can mean almost anything, but it doesn’t automatically mean that he had any true impact on the overall financial investments the company made or any of its policies.
Sounds like you are already saying he’s guilty of something just because he worked there.
July 10th, 2009 at 10:53 am
The banking system is the major reason for all of our country’s financial problems beginning with the Federal Reserve and ending with your neighborhood bank. Only through the voodoo of fractional reserve banking can you create money out of nothing and charge people interest for the pleasure of taking it thereby enslaving an overwhelming majority of our citizens. The only difference between slaves and workers in a capitalist system is that workers in a capitalist system have to provide their own food and shelter. This country went off the rails at the beginning of this century with the move to combustible engines for transportation and the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank in 1913, and we won’t get back on track until elect people committed to doing something about both of these issues.