Next month, Sheehy, 50, will take over Ireland’s largest company from Chief Executive Officer Michael D. Buckley, who is retiring.
Sheehy is chairman and chief executive officer of the Mid-Atlantic division of M&T Bank Corp. of Buffalo, N.Y., which bought a majority stake in Allfirst from Allied Irish for $3.1 billion in September 2002, six months after Sheehy arrived.
Sheehy remained a conduit between the two banks. Allied Irish, also known as AIB, got M&T stock in the Allfirst sale and is the largest shareholder – 23.4 percent – in the U.S. bank.
“He combines a 30-year career in AIB, during which he held a variety of key posts, with three years working at the very highest levels in M&T,” Allied Irish Chairman Dermot Gleeson said of Sheehy.
AIB’s U.S. shares closed down 30 cents yesterday at $42.06 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Allied Irish’s board chose Sheehy to run Allfirst in 2002 after revelations that a currency trader at the Baltimore bank, John M. Rusnak, covered up $691 million in losses over five years. Rusnak pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud and is serving a 7 1/2 -year sentence at a federal prison in West Virginia.
Soon after arriving in Baltimore, Sheehy said he was impressed with Allfirst’s staff. “In a crisis, people raise their game,” he said at the time.
Sheehy said then that he was prepared to stay in Baltimore at least three years. That turned out to be the period that he will spend in the job. The Dublin native couldn’t be reached yesterday to comment on his new post.
Sheehy joined Allied Irish in 1971, working his way up from managing retail branches to become director of the bank’s 250-branch system in Ireland. He led several projects, partnering with the national postal service, which opened bank branches in its offices, and with a Spanish bank to make it easier for Irish customers to get mortgages on vacation property abroad.
At M&T, Sheehy steered the bank through cost-cutting and layoffs at Maryland branches, and helped burnish its image in civic circles. The bank helped Mayor Martin O’Malley devise a plan to bail out Baltimore’s financially distressed schools, partly paid for the “Believe” urban-renewal campaign and bought the naming rights to Ravens stadium.
“Under Eugene Sheehy’s leadership,” M&T Chairman and CEO Robert G. Wilmers said, “we have retained customers and employees, grown key segments of the business and have quickly become an established, recognized part of the communities we serve.”
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