Customers Bancorp has backtracked on its initial assertion that former CFO Carla Leibold was terminated for “cause” this month.
The West Reading, Pennsylvania-based bank holding company issued an amended filing Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, indicating Leibold’s departure was a “separation by mutual agreement.”
Customers Bancorp will pay Leibold $2.5 million in biweekly installments over the next two years under the agreement, according to a separate filing. In exchange, Leibold forfeited her unvested equity awards, including nearly 30,000 restricted stock units, more than 20,000 performance stock units and 25,000 stock options, the company said.
Customers Bancorp currently trades at roughly $50 per share on the New York Stock Exchange — meaning Leibold is giving up a bit more than she’ll be receiving.
Leibold “has represented to the Company that she is not aware of any facts that constitute or might constitute violations of the Company’s legal or regulatory obligations,” Customers said in both of Thursday’s filings.
That’s in contrast to the SEC filing Customers Bancorp submitted April 12, in which the company said Leibold was terminated April 10 “for ‘cause’ … for violating Company policy.”
“Ms. Leibold has disputed the Company’s characterization of her separation,” Customers said April 12.
Leibold and the company each will be subject to the nondisclosure, noncompete and nonsolicitation terms of their original employment agreement, Customers said Thursday.
Leibold’s departure was one of a spate of CFO changes in the banking sphere this month. New York Community Bank on April 12 announced the hiring of a U.S. Bank alum as CFO. Royal Bank of Canada dismissed CFO Nadine Ahn on April 5 after the bank found evidence that she was in an undisclosed personal relationship. And Evansville, Indiana-based Old National Bank placed its CFO, Brendon Falconer, on administrative leave after he was arrested on child molestation charges.
Leibold had served as Customers Bancorp’s CFO since November 2018. The company elevated Philip Watkins from CFO of subsidiary Customers Bank to CFO of the holding company this month.
