2 Thrifts Will be Renamed

Washington Mutual Inc. plans to change the names of all of its Great Western and American Savings branches in California and nationwide to Washington Mutual by next spring, company officials said Wednesday.

The surprise move is a bid by Seattle-based Washington Mutual, now the nation’s biggest thrift, to strengthen its own brand name by stamping it on the 1,000 branches it controls in seven states. Since 1990, Washington Mutual has made 20 acquisitions in the West, including American Savings and Great Western.

Many analysts had expected Washington Mutual to give its California branches either the American Savings or Great Western name. Few expected Washington Mutual to use its own state-specific identity and discard two of the more venerable names in the California banking business.

“We don’t like surprises in this industry and this one certainly comes as a surprise,” said financial services analyst Donald Destino at Jefferies & Co. in Los Angeles. “It doesn’t sound like the greatest idea. If you’re going to build a California franchise you don’t want another state’s name in there.”

Still, Destino and other analysts noted that since Washington Mutual is now a huge franchise, with $96 billion of assets, this could eventually be a successful plan to boost its name recognition, not only in California but nationwide. However, it may be costly and initially confusing to customers, analysts said.

“We’ve been testing out names,” said Libby Hutchinson, spokeswoman for Washington Mutual, who said originally the bank had planned a separate name for the California branches. “While the Washington Mutual name wasn’t well known in California, there was a neutral reaction and we thought that could be beneficial.”

Kerry Killinger, chairman and chief executive of Washington Mutual said “adopting one name will further unite employee groups under one mission and purpose, ultimately strengthening corporate culture and performance.”

There are no current plans to change the names of Washington Mutual’s mutual fund, commercial banking or consumer finance affiliates, Hutchinson said, but it is unclear whether the Great Western Forum in Inglewood will also be renamed.

Bob Steiner, spokesman for California Sports, the owner of the Great Western forum, said they signed a 15-year agreement with Great Western in 1988 to use the name for 15 years, or until 2003.

“We don’t know what would happen now,” said Steiner. “We haven’t spoken to them yet about this.”

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Times staff writer Don Lee contributed to this report.