Nationsbank

NationsBank Corp. is about to make an exit from Maryland, but the only thing leaving the state is its legal address.The company has applied to federal regulators for the right to move the headquarters of its Maryland subsidiary 30 miles south from Bethesda into Virginia, and merge that subsidiary into its Virginia bank, which is based in Richmond.The result will be a bank headquartered in Virginia that also has branches in Maryland and Washington. Regulators are expected OK the move.For NationsBank, the move should result in some cost savings, mainly from fewer reports that will have to be compiled for regulators.

Shares of NationsBank Corp., the nation's third-biggest bank, tumbled yesterday as fourth-quarter earnings failed to meet Wall Street's expectations. The company blamed lower interest rates.The Charlotte-based banking company that took over Baltimore-based MNC Financial Inc. and MNC's Maryland National Bank unit in 1993 said it earned $405 million in the last three months of 1994, up from $373 million in 1993.But the results worked out to only $1.46 a share, six cents short of the consensus estimate of analysts who follow NationsBank.

DALLAS -- NationsBank Corp., fighting a suit claiming the bank company used ill-gotten information to buy the operations of First RepublicBank Corp., must face a jury trial, a Texas appeals court ruled.The suit, filed in a Dallas state court in June 1992, alleges that NationsBank's predecessor, NCNB Corp., and Chairman and Chief Executive Hugh McColl Jr. unlawfully obtained the acquisition plan to be used by Lone Star Partners in its attempt to buy the insolvent bank subsidiaries of Dallas-based First RepublicBank.

NationsBank Corp.'s steady march toward interstate branching -- ahead of Congress' efforts to pass a national branching law -- was stopped in its tracks last month by Maryland Bank Commissioner Margie Muller.The Charlotte-based company, now Maryland's largest banking company, had found a way last fall to establish a subsidiary bank headquartered in one state that ran branches in another state. The authority was based on a 1959 revision to a 19th-century law that allows banking companies to move their headquarters up to 30 miles away, even across state lines.

A local housing advocacy group has joined forces with NationsBank to offer a mortgage program for low- and moderate-income families.The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, announced the program last week at a news conference.The program, for first-time home buyers, shaves one percentage point off the market rate for a mortgage and allows buyers to pay no more than one point at closing, said ACORN representative Angela Davis. The program requires a 5 percent downpayment, said Ms. Davis, who will screen applicants through ACORN's loan counseling program.

NationsBank Corp. reported a sharp increase in first-quarter earnings yesterday, partly because of its acquisitions of financial companies such as Baltimore-based MNC Financial Inc.The Charlotte, N.C.-based company, the nation's third-largest bank holding company, said its earnings for the three months ended March 31 were $417 million, a 48 percent gain over earnings of the same period in 1993. Last year's first-quarter profit of $281 million does not include a $200 million gain stemming from a change in accounting for income taxes.

NEW YORK -- Yesterday's heavy activity in NationsBank Corp.'s stock stems from dividend-related trades, said Rusty Page, senior vice president.Early yesterday, a block of 6.6 million NationsBank shares was crossed at $50.875, representing about 2.7 percent of the stock outstanding. A 4.9-million-share block, making up about 2 percent of NationsBank's common stock, was crossed at $52.Mr. Page said Merrill Lynch & Co., PaineWebber Inc. and Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. have been involved in NationsBank dividend swaps this week, although he said he was unsure whether those brokerage houses participated in yesterday's block trading.

NationsBank has dismissed executive Susan C. Keating five weeks after placing her on indefinite leave, a company spokesman confirmed."She has left the bank and that is all we can say about the situation," said John Riggin, a NationsBank spokesman.It is unclear why Ms. Keating left the company after running NationsBank's Maryland operations for nearly two years. The Sun reported last month that Ms. Keating had been offered a job by First Maryland Bancorp.Meantime, NationsBank promoted Frances Manus to consumer banking executive for the Baltimore metropolitan area, Chuck Baynard to consumer banking executive for the Washington market, and Gary Fleming to marketing executive for the Mid-Atlantic Banking Group.

NationsBank said yesterday that it would try to control health-care costs with a new system of managed care that includes negotiating directly with doctors and hospitals for discounted rates in some areas.The plan will allow many of its 55,000 employees nationwide, including 3,400 in Baltimore, to choose either a health maintenance organization or a preferred-provider organization.Employees who choose the HMO would receive medical care for a flat monthly rate. Workers who join the PPO and go to doctors and hospitals on the NationsBank plan's list would receive 80 percent reimbursement.

NationsBank Corp. and a Virginia company announced yesterday that they have jointly created a consumer card that will reward consumers for purchases made with a select group of U.S. retail companies.The Baltimore-Washington market was one of three metropolitan areas where the save-as-you-spend card, known as START, began its test-marketing yesterday. The other markets are Columbia, S.C., and Houston.NationsBank has 19 branches in the Baltimore area, said Ellison Clary, a NationsBank spokesman.