In the Upper Midwest alone, 1,500 banks became insolvent from 1920 to 1929.
While these restructuring initiatives were being carried out, the bank suffered another blow during the 1982 Thanksgiving weekend when the downtown Minneapolis headquarters burned to the ground. In 1920, Hellman was very briefly succeeded as president by his son, I. In 1984 the bank branched into merchant banking with the purchase of Continental Illinois Ltd. Firstamerica changed its name to Western Bancorporation in 1961. In 1973, the bank made a number of key policy changes. In June 1981 the company changed its name to First Interstate Bancorp. London in 1968 with several other American banks, was hard hit by the recession of 1974 and failed.
There was also a culture clash before the two banks and their customers. Please wikify format this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. Transamerica's banking operations, which included 23 banks in 11 western states, were spun off as Firstamerica Corporation. Money flowed into San Francisco from around the country to support rapid reconstruction of the city.