PhillyDeals: JPMorgan exec coming home to teach

Two Aprils ago, in his office at JPMorgan Chase & Co. above Park Avenue, John Chrin told me the swollen U.S. banking industry was ripe to become a lot smaller.

It has happened, and Chrin was right in the middle of it, though neither he nor any other high-paid dealmaker predicted the costly, tortured course the industry has followed since.

As cohead of the financial-institutions group at JPMorgan's investment bank, Chrin worked early, late, and weekends on multibillion-dollar transactions amid corporate financial blowups, massive investor losses, and frantic government directives involving large sums of public money.

Chrin was one of the first JPMorgan people to get a close look at current chief executive officer Jamie Dimon: He worked on the bank merger that brought Dimon into the firm and up to its executive suite.

"He understands the detail, in terms of the inner workings of how business takes place, better than any CEO I've ever dealt with," Chrin told me Friday. "And I've dealt with first-class CEOs around the world."

During Easter week last year, Chrin helped lead JPMorgan's review and acquisition of stricken Bear Stearns Cos. Inc. Then he worked on Morgan's acquisition of troubled Washington Mutual Inc. He counseled Wells Fargo & Co. on its purchase of failing Wachovia Corp. (besting rival suitor Citigroup Inc.), then PNC Financial Services Group on its deal for giant National City Corp.

"For our group, 2007 and '08 was like the Eagles and the Flyers and the Phillies and the Sixers all winning championships at one time," Chrin said.

But he isn't staying in

New York to see what happens next.

Chrin is leaving in June to come home to Pennsylvania, back to his alma mater, Lehigh University ('85, B.A., economics; '86, B.S., industrial engineering), where the college sweetheart he married (Maria, '87) is now a trustee, and their son is an undergraduate.

Why Lehigh? "Lehigh gave me a chance," Chrin told me. A graduate of Easton High School, he said: "I was the first person in my family to go to college."

Chrin said he decided to step down - spend more time with his son and daughters, "explore" other careers - after coming home in December for his uncle's funeral. "We realize the time we have on this Earth is finite. You want to make every day count."

He'll start at Lehigh this fall, teaching "an upper-level elective on mergers and acquisitions," mentoring students, and building ties, he hopes, between the finance department and Lehigh's art and engineering faculties.

Chrin also wants to explore public service. Maybe, someday, a run for Congress. He's a registered Republican and a resident of New Jersey, but neither is necessarily permanent, he says.

For this dealmaker, the crisis that has undone so many careers helped make his next one possible.

Another Wall Street figure leaving metro New York and returning to the provinces is Steve Solk, who left a Citigroup commercial-finance executive post to run the western region of Metro Bank, the Commerce Bank of Pennsylvania-Republic First Bank combination backed by Commerce Bancorp Inc. founder Vernon Hill.

"I've worked at Citigroup the last 21 years. The last job I had was transferring a business we sold to General Electric," Solk told me. "So I'm reflecting on what's important for me going forward."

As a Citi franchise-financing executive, Solk had gotten to know Steve Lewis, Hill's partner in a suburban Burger King franchise chain. The fast-food business impressed him, and so did Hill's bank - the "relentless" focus on "your team and your community," according to Solk. When it was time to leave Citi, he reached out to Hill.

"Big organizations in this country have gotten a little lost in their focus, because it changes so often," Solk concluded. "Today, customer service is king again. When you're really big, you can lose focus. You know. Such big meetings. So much change."

The distressed-company specialists who refinanced Boscov's, Kraftex, Aluminum Shapes and other troubled Philadelphia-area companies in the last year have exercised their right to buy back their old firm from PNC Financial Services Group. They had sold the company to National City Corp. three years ago.

Principals Mark Chesen, Scott Victor, Matthew Carlson, and Michael Goodman, based in West Conshohocken, and Robert Smith, who runs their New York office, have "re-acquired" the business and formed SSG Capital Advisors L.L.C., for an undisclosed price, Chesen and Victor told me late last week.

"It's a good opportunity for us to be a boutique and niche investment bank again in this environment," Chesen said. "The whole world is a 'special situation' these days." SSG stands for special situation group.