Navigating Your Bank Through a Reg Order

Kim Liddell, CEO of Lake Shore Bancorp discusses the turnaround story at the New York bank as it works through Fed and OCC enforcement actions.

It’s Monday, Bank Slaters!

Fall is here, so I’ll soon be raking up leaves and prepping for Halloween. It also means a return to the road — I’ll be on a panel at the American Bankers Association’s Annual Convention to discuss 2025 M&A trends. Then I’m off to the stunning Ole Miss campus to moderate an M&A discussion with Jim Rieniets at INSBANK, Neil Stevens at Oconee State Bank and Bart Smith at Performance Trust Capital Partners.

For those of you watching third-quarter earnings, here are some results on JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo.

Speaking of M&A panels, Travillian went live with the discussion I co-moderated with Brian Love and featuring Frank Sorrentino IV at Stephens, Jeff Cardone at Luse Gorman and Jake Dalava at Capital Bank. It was a great conversation — watch it here.

Let’s talk about working through an enforcement action.

Our podcast recently hosted Kim Liddell to discuss efforts to free Lake Shore Bancorp from a Fed written agreement and an OCC consent order. He thought he had retired from banking after turning Delmarva Bancshares around and orchestrating its sale to BV Financial in 2020. He stepped down as BV Financial’s chairman in May 2022.

A call from an executive recruiter a year later brought him to Lake Shore, where the OCC had just labeled its bank as being in a “troubled condition” and ordered it to fix “operational, compliance and governance deficiencies described in the order.” Lake Shore also suspended its dividend.