We are a bank holding company headquartered in Wichita, Kansas. Our wholly-owned
banking subsidiary, Equity Bank, provides a broad range of financial services
primarily to businesses and business owners as well as individuals through our
network of 29 full service branches located in Kansas and Missouri.
Our principal objective is to increase stockholder value and generate consistent
earnings growth by expanding our commercial banking franchise both organically
and through strategic acquisitions. We strive to provide an enhanced banking
experience for our customers by providing them with a comprehensive suite of
sophisticated banking products and services tailored to meet their needs, while
delivering the high-quality, relationship-based customer service of a community
bank.
We offer a variety of loans, including commercial and industrial, commercial
real estate-backed loans (including loans secured by owner occupied commercial
properties), commercial lines of credit, working capital loans, term loans,
equipment financing, acquisition, expansion and development loans, borrowing
base loans, real estate construction loans, homebuilder loans, agricultural,
government guaranteed loans, letters of credit and other loan products to national
and regional companies, restaurant franchisees, hoteliers, real estate developers,
manufacturing and industrial companies, agribusiness companies and other businesses.
We also offer various consumer loans to individuals and professionals including
residential real estate loans, home equity loans, home equity lines of credit
( “HELOCs”), installment loans, unsecured and secured personal lines
of credit, overdraft protection and letters of credit. Lending activities originate
from the relationships and efforts of our bankers, with an emphasis on providing
banking solutions tailored to meet our customers’ needs while maintaining
our underwriting standards.
We believe the following competitive strengths will allow us to continue to
achieve our principal objective of increasing stockholder value and generating
consistent earnings growth through the organic and strategic expansion of our
commercial banking franchise:
Experienced Leadership and Management Team. Our seasoned and experienced executive
management team, senior leaders and board of directors have exhibited the ability
to deliver stockholder value by consistently growing profitably while expanding
our commercial banking franchise through acquisition and integration. The members
of our executive management team have, on average, more than twenty years’
experience working for large, billion-dollar-plus financial institutions in
our markets during various economic cycles and have significant mergers and
acquisitions experience in the financial services industry. Our executive management
team has instilled a transparent and entrepreneurial culture that rewards leadership,
innovation, and problem solving.
Focus on Commercial Banking. We are primarily a commercial bank. As measured
by outstanding balances as of December 31, 2015, commercial loans composed over
70.5% of our loan portfolio, and within our commercial loan portfolio, 61.3%
of such loans were commercial real estate loans and 38.7% were commercial and
industrial loans. We believe we have developed strong commercial relationships
in our markets across a diversified range of sectors, including key areas supporting
regional and local economic activity and growth, such as manufacturing, freight/transportation,
consumer services, franchising and commercial real estate. We believe we have
also been successful in attracting customers from larger competitors because
of our flexible and responsive approach in providing banking solutions tailored
to meet our customers’ needs while maintaining disciplined underwriting
standards. Our relationship-based approach seeks to grow lending relationships
with our customers as they expand their businesses, including geographically
and through cross-selling our various other banking products, such as our deposit
and treasury management products. We have a growing presence in attractive commercial
banking markets, such as Wichita and Kansas City, which we believe present significant
opportunities to continue to increase our business banking activities.
Our Ability to Consolidate. Our branches are strategically located within
metropolitan markets, such as Kansas City and Wichita as well as stable community
markets that present opportunities to expand our market share. Our executive
management team has identified significant acquisition and consolidation opportunities,
ranging from small to large community banking institutions. We believe our track
record of strategic acquisitions and effective integrations, combined with our
expertise in our markets and scalable platform, will allow us to capitalize
on these growth opportunities.
Disciplined Acquisition Approach. Our disciplined approach to acquisitions,
consolidations and integrations, includes the following: (i) selectively acquiring
community banking franchises only at appropriate valuations, after taking into
account risks that we perceive with respect to the targeted bank; (ii) completing
comprehensive due diligence and developing an appropriate plan to address any
legacy credit problems of the targeted institution; (iii) identifying an achievable
cost savings estimate and holding our management accountable for achieving such
estimates; (iv) executing definitive acquisition agreements that we believe
provide adequate protections to us; (v) installing our credit procedures, audit
and risk management policies and procedures and compliance standards upon consummation
of the acquisition; (vi) collaborating with the target’s management team
to execute on synergies and cost saving opportunities related to the acquisition;
(vii) involving a broader management team across multiple departments in order
to help ensure the successful integration of all business functions; and (viii)
scheduling the acquisition closing date to occur simultaneously with the platform
conversion date. We believe this approach allows us to realize the benefits
of the acquisition and create stockholder value, while appropriately managing
risk.
Efficient and Scalable Platform with Capacity to Support Our Growth.
Through significant investments in technology and staff, our management team
has built an efficient and scalable corporate infrastructure within our commercial
banking franchise, including in the areas of banking processes, technology,
data processing, underwriting and risk management, which we believe will support
our continued growth. While expanding our infrastructure, several departmental
functions have been outsourced to gain the experience of outside professionals
while at the same time achieving more favorable economics and cost-effective
solutions. Such outsourced areas include the internal audit function, investment
securities management, and select loan review. This outsourcing strategy has
proven to control costs while adding enhanced controls and/or service levels.
We believe that this scalable infrastructure will continue to allow us to efficiently
and effectively manage our anticipated growth.
Culture Committed to Talent Development, Transparency and Accountability.
We have invested in professional talent since our inception by building a team
of “business persons first and bankers second” and economically
aligned them with our stockholders, primarily through our stock purchase opportunities.
In our efforts to become a destination for seasoned bankers with an entrepreneurial
spirit, we have developed numerous leadership development programs. For example,
“Equity University” is a year-long program we designed for our promising
company-wide leaders. In addition, in 2014 Equity Bank was named one of the
“Best Places to Work” by the Wichita Business Journal, and in 2015,
the Wichita Business Journal named Equity Bank a “Best in Business”
winner. We believe our well-trained and motivated professionals work most effectively
in a corporate environment that emphasizes transparency, respect, innovation
and accountability. Our culture provides our professionals with the empowerment
to better serve our clients and our communities.
Sophisticated and Customized Banking Products with High-Quality Customer Service.
We strive to offer our customers the sophisticated commercial banking products
of large financial institutions with the personalized service of a community
bank. Our management team’s significant banking and lending experience
in our markets has provided us with an understanding of the commercial banking
needs of our customers, which allows us to tailor our products and services
to meet our customers’ needs. In addition to offering a diverse array
of banking products and services, we offer our customers the high-touch, relationship-based
customer service experience of a community bank. For example, we utilize Flight,
a customized customer relationship management system, to assign relationship
officers to enhance our relationships with our customers and to identify and
meet their particular needs.
Strong Risk Management Practices. We place significant emphasis on risk management
as an integral component of our organizational culture without sacrificing growth.
We believe our comprehensive risk management system is designed to make sure
that we have sound policies, procedures, and practices for the management of
key risks under our risk framework (which includes market, operational, liquidity,
interest rate sensitivity, credit, insurance, regulatory, legal and reputational
risk) and that any exceptions are reported by senior management to our board
of directors or audit committee. Our risk management practices are overseen
by the Chairmen of our audit and risk committees, who have more than 60 years
of combined banking experience, and our Chief Risk Officer, who has more than
30 years of banking experience. We believe that our enterprise risk management
philosophy has been important in gaining and maintaining the confidence of our
various constituencies and growing our business and footprint within our markets.
We also believe our strong risk management practices are manifested in our asset
quality statistics.
We offer banking products and services that are competitively priced with a
focus on convenience and accessibility. We offer a full suite of online banking
solutions including access to account balances, online transfers, online bill
payment and electronic delivery of customer statements, mobile banking solutions
for iPhone and Android phones, including remote check deposit with mobile bill
pay. We offer extended drive-through hours, ATMs and banking by telephone, mail
and personal appointment. We offer debit cards with no ATM surcharges or foreign
ATM fees for checking customers, plus night depository, direct deposit, cashier’s
and travelers checks and letters of credit, as well as treasury management services,
wire transfer services and automated clearing house (“ACH”) services.
We offer a full array of commercial treasury management services designed to
be competitive with banks of all sizes. Treasury Management Services include
balance reporting (including current day and previous day activity), transfers
between accounts, wire transfer initiation, ACH origination and stop payments.
Cash management deposit products consist of lockbox, remote deposit capture,
positive pay, reverse positive pay, account reconciliation services, zero balance
accounts and sweep accounts including loan sweep.
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