Latest de novo effort in affluent Atlanta suburb

A group is planning a bank in an Atlanta suburb where a previous effort faltered.

Organizers of Loyal Trust Bank applied on Monday with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to open in Johns Creek.

The group plans to raise $20 million to $28 million, said Charlie Brown, the proposed bank’s CEO. The goal is to open this fall.

Loyal Trust would be a multicultural bank with a large number of Asian-American shareholders, Brown said.

Rose Jarboe is the proposed bank’s chairman. She is CEO of WePartner, an Atlanta-area real estate investment company. Bill Abernathy, former deputy comptroller, and John Lewis Jr., a lawyer at Lawrence & Bundy, are among the proposed bank’s directors.

Brown has been the CEO of several banks, including Charlotte State Bank, Englewood Bank and Trust and Insignia Bank. He was CEO at Insignia in 2016 when it was sold to Stonegate Bank.

Johns Creek was where organizers planned to form Pacific Metro Bank. That group withdrew its application in April 2017 after its proposed chairman stepped away from the effort.

Brown said his group has no overlap with Pacific Metro in terms of officers and directors.

Organizers of Loyal Trust decided to form a bank after witnessing the consolidation around the Atlanta area, with Brown noting the pending merger of BB&T and SunTrust Banks.

“Atlanta is losing its largest local bank around the time we’re planning to open,” Brown said. “A lot of the bank mergers here present opportunities for us to gain customers and staff.”

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