merger on March 1, 1994, after regulatory approval. Although it was touted as a merger of equals, Key and Society were an odd couple. As mentioned above, Key was a decentralized community bank combining two banking networks—an eastern network in New England and upstate New York and a western one in the Rockies and Pacific Northwest—within a single corporate structure. Society, in contrast, was a classic big-city commercial bank with a centralized structure largely concentrated in three states. Riley planned to retire as CEO at the end of 1995. He decided to accelerate it by four months, however, instead stepping down on September 1, 1995. Gillespie took the helm as CEO and later chairman, allowing his protege Henry Meyer to become COO and later president. Post-merger While still integrating Society Bank and KeyBank, Gillespie attempted to turn Key into a financial services powerhouse. Between 1995 and 2001, Gillespie initiated nine significant acquisitions and 6 divestitures. In late 1998, Key bought Cleveland-based brokerage firm, McDonald & Co. for $653 million in stock. The McDonald acquisition was the largest non-banking deal in both size and impact on Key. McDonald was sold to the U.S. investment arm of UBS AG in 2007 for roughly $280 million. As a result, Key began processing all subsequent securities transactions under its new broker-dealer name, "KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc", in April 2007. However, investors became wary of all the Gillespie-era deals. Some believed that Gillespie was making all the moves to cover up poor performance, although in hindsight that appears to be far from truth. The concept was dubbed "burning the furniture", implying that Key would sell an asset to obfuscate earnings. For instance, Key sold its residential mortgage servicing to Countrywide Financial (now Bank of America Home Loans) in 1995, shareholder services in 1996, various chunks of the bank in 1997–1999 (i.e. Wyoming, Florida, and Long Island), and credit card operations to The Associates in 2000 (which was quickly thereafter acquired by Citigroup). But Gillespie was attempting to increase fee-income by acquiring high-growth businesses, including McDonald and equipment financing firm Leastec, and decreasing the exposure to the bank's shrinking population base in its primary footprint, so-called rust belt states such as Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana. Gillespie resigned from the CEO position on February 1, 2001, and then as chairman at the annual meeting on May 17 during which he was replaced by Henry Meyer. In October