We are a full-service regional bank holding company focused on relationship-based
business and agribusiness banking. We serve our customers through 158 branches
in attractive markets in seven states: South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado,
Arizona, Kansas and Missouri. We were established 80 years ago and have achieved
strong market positions by developing and maintaining extensive local relationships
in the communities we serve. By leveraging our business and agribusiness focus,
highly efficient operating model, robust approach to risk management and presence
in attractive markets, we have achieved significant and profitable growth—both
organically and through disciplined acquisitions.
We focus on business and agribusiness banking, complemented by retail banking
and wealth management services. Our loan portfolio consists primarily of business
loans, comprised of commercial and industrial, or ("C&I), loans and
commercial real estate, or ("CRE), loans, and agribusiness loans. Our
business and agribusiness loans collectively accounted for 85.9% of our total
loan portfolio. In addition, 63.3% of our aggregate loan portfolio, comprising
our CRE loans (representing 38.7% of our aggregate loan portfolio), residential
real estate loans (representing 12.5% of our aggregate loan portfolio) and agriculture
real estate loans (representing 12.1% of our aggregate loan portfolio), was
primarily secured by interests in real estate predominantly located in the states
in which we operate. In addition, some of our other lending occasionally involves
taking real estate as primary or secondary collateral. We offer small and mid-sized
businesses a focused suite of financial products and have established strong
relationships across a diversified range of sectors, including key areas supporting
regional growth such as agribusiness services, freight and transport, healthcare
and tourism. We have developed extensive expertise in agribusiness lending,
which serves one of the most prominent industries across our markets, and we
offer a variety of financial services designed to meet the specific needs of
our agribusiness customers. We also provide a range of deposit and loan products
to our retail customers through several channels, including our branch network,
online banking system, mobile banking applications and customer care centers.
In our wealth management business, we seek to expand our private banking, financial
planning, investment management and insurance operations to better position
us to capture an increased share of the business of managing the private wealth
of many of our business and agribusiness customers.
Our banking model seeks to balance the best of being a “big enough”
& “small enough” bank, providing capabilities typical of a much
larger bank, such as diversified product specialists, customized banking solutions
and multiple delivery channels, with a customer-focused culture usually associated
with smaller banks. Our focus on balancing these capabilities with a service-oriented
culture is embedded within our operations and is enhanced by focusing on our
core competencies. We are well recognized within our markets for our relationship-based
banking model that provides for local, efficient decision making. We believe
we serve our customers in a manner that is responsive, flexible and accessible.
Our relationship bankers strive to build deep, long-term relationships with
customers and understand the customers’ specific needs to identify appropriate
financial solutions. We believe we have been successful in attracting customers
from larger competitors because of our flexible approach and the speed and efficiency
with which we provide banking solutions to our customers while maintaining disciplined
underwriting standards.
We believe that stable long-term growth and profitability are the result of
building strong customer relationships while maintaining disciplined underwriting
standards. We plan to focus on originating high-quality loans and growing our
low-cost deposit base through our relationship-based business and agribusiness
banking. We believe that continuing to focus on our core strengths will enable
us to gain market share, continue to improve our operational efficiency and
increase profitability. The key components of our strategy for continued success
and future growth include the following:
Attract and Retain High-Quality Relationship Bankers
A key component of our growth in our existing markets and entry into new markets
has been our ability to attract and retain high-quality relationship bankers.
We have recruited approximately 61 new business and agribusiness relationship
bankers since January 1, 2011 (out of a total of approximately 182 business
and agribusiness relationship bankers at September 30, 2015), with average industry
experience of over 15 years when hired. We believe we have been successful in
recruiting qualified relationship bankers due primarily to our decentralized
management approach, focused product suite and flexible and customer-focused
culture while continuing to provide sophisticated banking capabilities to serve
our customers’ needs. We intend to continue to hire experienced relationship
bankers to execute our relationship-driven banking model. We utilize a variable
compensation structure designed to incentivize our relationship bankers by tying
their compensation to both the performance of the Company and their individual
overall performance and the performance of the loans that they help originate,
which we measure based on revenues, deposits raised, return on assets and asset
quality/risk, among other things. We believe this structure establishes the
appropriate incentives to maximize performance and satisfy our risk management
objectives. By leveraging the strong networks and reputation of our experienced
relationship bankers, we believe we can continue to grow our loan portfolio
and deposit base as well as cross-sell other products and services.
Optimize Footprint in Existing and Complementary Markets
We pursue attractive growth opportunities to expand within our existing footprint
and enter new markets aligned with our business model and strategic plans. We
believe we can increase our presence in under-represented areas in our existing
markets and broaden our footprint in attractive markets adjacent and complementary
to our current markets by continuing our emphasis on business and agribusiness
banking. Our branch strategy is guided by our ability to recruit experienced
relationship bankers in under-represented and new markets. These bankers expand
our banking relationships into these markets prior to opening a branch, which
increases our likelihood of expanding profitably by developing an asset base
before we establish a branch in that market. We will continue to opportunistically
consider opening new branches. We intend to capitalize on growth opportunities
we believe exist in growing economies in and adjacent to our existing markets.
Deepen Customer Relationships
We believe that our reputation, expertise and relationship-based banking model
enables us to deepen our relationships with our customers. We look to leverage
our relationships with existing customers by cross-selling our products and
services. We have sought to grow our low-cost customer deposit base by attracting
more deposits from our business and agribusiness customers. We offer alternative
cash management solutions intended to help retain business customers. We seek
to expand and enhance our wealth management platform through focused product
offerings that we believe will appeal to our more affluent customers. We intend
to continue to capitalize on opportunities to capture more business from existing
customers throughout our banking network.
Continue to Improve Efficiency and Lower Costs
We believe that our focus on operational efficiency, even in light of incremental
costs from being a public company, is critical to our profitability and future
growth. We intend to carefully manage our cost structure and continuously refine
and implement internal processes to create further efficiencies and enhance
our earnings. We continue to optimize our branch network and continually review
additional internal processes and vendor relationships, with a view to identifying
opportunities to further improve efficiency and enhance earnings. We are also
continuing our efforts to shift our deposit base to lower-cost customer deposits,
a strategic initiative that has been primarily responsible for driving our cost
of deposit funding down since September 30, 2012. We believe our scalable systems,
risk management infrastructure and operating model will better enable us to
achieve further operational efficiencies as we grow our business.
Our Operating Model
We believe our highly efficient and scalable operating model has enabled us
to operate profitably, remain competitive, increase market share and develop
new business. We emphasize company-wide operating principles focused on proactive
expense management, targeted investment, disciplined lending practices and focused
product offerings. We have achieved cost efficiencies by consolidating our branch
network through the closure of less profitable locations and through our demonstrated
success in acquiring and integrating banks. We have also achieved significant
cost efficiencies through the use of Kaizen & Lean principles, which are
management techniques for improving processes and reducing waste, to eliminate
redundancies and improve the efficient allocation of resources throughout our
operations. We believe our focus on operating efficiency has contributed significantly
to our return on equity, return on assets and net income.
Our Relationship With NAB
Great Western Bancorp, Inc., a Delaware corporation, was formed in July 2014
as a wholly owned subsidiary of National Americas Holdings LLC to be the publicly
traded holding company for Great Western Bank. National Americas Holdings LLC
was formed as a Delaware limited liability company in 2008 by NAB to facilitate
NAB’s purchase of Great Western Bank. In connection with our initial public
offering in October 2014, Great Western Bancorp, Inc. purchased all outstanding
common stock issued by Great Western Bancorporation, Inc., an Iowa corporation
formed in 1968 which was then the holding company for Great Western Bank, from
National Americas Investments, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of National Americas
Holdings LLC. Following this purchase, Great Western Bancorporation, Inc. merged
with and into Great Western Bancorp, Inc., with Great Western Bancorp, Inc.
continuing as the surviving corporation and succeeding to all the assets, liabilities
and business of Great Western Bancorporation, Inc. We conduct our business through
our bank as a single reportable segment, with all of our identifiable assets
located in the United States.