MyState Financial yesterday said it appointed John Gilbert as its new chief executive, effective tomorrow. He replaces Chris Brooks.Gilbert retired as chief executive of Cuscal, the specialist banking entity servicing most credit unions, in late 2008 after more than a decade at the helm. Gilbert was an industry regulator in the early 1990s. MyState is planing a merger with Tasmanian Perpetual Trustees, a plan first announced in October 2008.Preparations for the merger may be proceeding more slowly than planned.When announcing revised merger terms in January 2009, MyState said in a notice to members that it was working towards achieving a revised commencement date of 30 June 2009.MyState and Tasmanian Perpetual are yet to call meetings of members and shareholders to consider the plan and have not published supporting documents.Members of the MyState Financial credit union in Tasmania will emerge with 67.5 per cent of shares while shareholders in the ASX-listed Tasmanian Perpetual will own 32.5 per cent.Tasmanian Perpetual Trustees has about $1.2 billion in funds under management and about the same under advice. TPT has a market capitalisation of $49 million.MyState Financial has about $1.8 billion in assets and 130,000 members. The credit union was formed from the merger of Island State and Connect Financial two years ago.