We are a bank holding company within the meaning of the Bank Holding Company
Act of 1956 and are headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. Through our wholly-owned
subsidiary bank, we operate 18 full-service banking offices located in Jefferson,
Shelby, Madison, Montgomery, Houston and Mobile Counties of Alabama, Escambia
County, Florida, Cobb and Douglas Counties of Georgia, Charleston County of
South Carolina and Davidson County, Tennessee in the metropolitan statistical
areas (“MSAs”) of Birmingham-Hoover, Huntsville, Montgomery, Dothan
and Mobile, Alabama, Pensacola-Ferry Pass-Brent, Florida, Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell,
Georgia, Charleston-North Charleston, South Carolina and Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin,
Tennessee. Through our bank, we originate commercial, consumer and other loans
and accept deposits, provide electronic banking services, such as online and
mobile banking, including remote deposit capture, deliver treasury and cash
management services and provide correspondent banking services to other financial
institutions.
We operate our bank using a simple business model based on organic loan and
deposit growth, generated through high quality customer service, delivered by
a team of experienced bankers focused on developing and maintaining long-term
banking relationships with our target customers. We utilize a uniform, centralized
back office risk and credit platform to support a decentralized decision-making
process executed locally by our regional chief executive officers. This decentralized
decision-making process allows individual lending officers varying levels of
lending authority, based on the experience of the individual officer. When the
total amount of loans to a borrower exceeds an officer’s lending authority,
further approval must be obtained by the applicable regional chief executive
officer (G. Carlton Barker – Montgomery, Andrew N. Kattos – Huntsville,
B. Harrison Morris, III – Dothan, Rex D. McKinney – Pensacola, W.
Bibb Lamar, Jr. – Mobile, Thomas G. Trouche – Charleston or Kenneth
L. Barber - Atlanta) and/or our senior management team. Rather than relying
on a more typical traditional, retail bank strategy of operating a broad base
of multiple brick and mortar branch locations in each market, our strategy focuses
on operating a limited and efficient branch network with sizable aggregate balances
of total loans and deposits housed in each branch office. We believe that this
approach more appropriately addresses our customers’ banking needs and
reflects a best-of-class delivery strategy for commercial banking services.
Our principal business is to accept deposits from the public and to make loans
and other investments. Our principal sources of funds for loans and investments
are demand, time, savings and other deposits and the amortization and prepayment
of loans and borrowings. Our principal sources of income are interest and fees
collected on loans, interest and dividends collected on other investments, and
service charges. Our principal expenses are interest paid on savings and other
deposits, interest paid on our other borrowings, employee compensation, office
expenses and other overhead expenses.
We are a full service commercial bank focused on providing competitive products,
state of the art technology and quality service. Our business philosophy is
to operate as a metropolitan community bank emphasizing prompt, personalized
customer service to the individuals and businesses located in our primary markets.
We aggressively market to our target customers, which include privately held
businesses with $2 million to $250 million in annual sales, professionals and
affluent consumers whom we believe are underserved by the larger regional banks
operating in our markets. We also seek to capitalize on the extensive relationships
that our management, directors, advisory directors and stockholders have with
the businesses and professionals in our markets.
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