By Greg Hazley
Abernathy MacGregor Group has come to the defense of two former top executives of Capitol One as that bank sues its former banking head and commercial banking chief for violating a competition agreement.
John Kanas, now chairman and CEO of BankUnited, and John Bohlsen, vice chairman and chief lending officer of BU, are the targets of the suit, which claims the duo violated a non-compete deal when BU said last month it will acquire Herald National Bank, a commercial institution based in New York, where Capitol One has a strong presence.
"John Bohlsen and I are well aware of our contractual obligations under our non-competition agreements with Capital One,” said a July 19 statement from Kanas via Abernathy’s M&A chief and managing director, Tom Johnson. “We have been fully compliant with those obligations, and we will continue to be so.”
A Capitol One spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal July 14 that “we fully support legitimate competition in the banking industry, but we expect non-compete agreements negotiated in good faith to be honored in full.”
The FDIC shut down Florida-based BankUnited during the financial crisis in 2009, but a group of private equity firms, including heavyweights Blackstone Group and Carlyle Group, bought it and took the bank public earlier this year.
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