Fifteen months after a deal that was supposed to be the capstone of his successful run at Flagstar Bancorp Inc., Alessandro DiNello now finds himself thrust back into the top job and grappling with the turnaround of a bank in crisis, Bloomberg News reported. DiNello this week was named chief executive officer of the bank that bought Flagstar in late 2022: New York Community Bancorp, whose troubles erupted at the end of January when the company — a major lender to New York apartment landlords — said it was stockpiling cash to cover potential problems with loans. The bank’s issues deepened this week as it announced “material weaknesses” in how it tracks loan risks, took a $2.4 billion goodwill impairment tied to past transactions and pushed Thomas Cangemi out as CEO, naming DiNello his replacement. Even before the latest announcements, NYCB was already touting DiNello, 69, as key to reworking the Hicksville, New York-based lender. In a Feb. 15 investor presentation, the bank pointed to the many accomplishments DiNello — or “Sandro,” as the slideshow called him — achieved while atop Troy, Michigan-based Flagstar: selling $278 million of real estate loans to Customers Bancorp Inc., launching a homebuilder-lending platform, buying bank branches from East West Bancorp and Wells Fargo & Co., and ultimately striking the deal with NYCB.
