In its 16 months in business, Fidelity and Trust Bank of Bethesda, Md., has nearly quadrupled its assets, to $206 million, thanks largely to growth in its mortgage banking subsidiary.
But Fidelity’s ambition is to be the bank of choice for Washington-area small businesses, and to help it get there it has hired local banking heavyweight Robert Pincus as its new chairman.
Mr. Pincus joined Fidelity March 7, three days after a noncompete agreement with his previous employer, BB&T Corp. expired. Though he will have no day-to-day responsibilities, he is expected to play a large role in raising capital to fund Fidelity’s expansion and in drawing commercial clients.
Arnold Danielson, the president of Danielson Associates Inc. in Rockville, Md., said Fidelity has landed a rainmaker.
During the 1980s and 1990s Mr. Pincus ran two highly successful community banks before selling them, and he still has extensive contacts in the Washington area. Franklin Bancorp, which was sold to BB&T in 1999, tripled its assets in five years under him.
“Pincus’ track record is rather superb” and he should be able to build Fidelity as rapidly as he built Franklin, Mr. Danielson said.
After selling $700 million-asset Franklin’s sale, Mr. Pincus, joined BB&T as president of the D.C. Metro region. He left in 2002.
He said in an interview last week that he decided to return to banking because he believes he still has a lot of good ideas and wants to pass them on to a new generation of bankers.
He said he has no interest in becoming a CEO again but likes the idea of being a “coach and mentor and strategic planner.”
Mr. Pincus, 58, will be working with a lot of familiar faces. Seven of Fidelity’s top executives, including CEO Barry Watkins, worked with him at Franklin. (Mr. Pinkus succeeds Mr. Watkins as chairman.)
Fidelity and Trust Mortgage Co., of Chevy Chase, Md., created the bank in late 2002 to help fund its thriving mortgage business. About 75% of the bank’s loan portfolio is in one- to four-family homes. (The parent company is Fidelity and Trust Financial Corp., also of Bethesda.)
In recent months the bank has hired three small-business lenders. Mr. Watkins said Mr. Pincus’ long list of contacts and his lending expertise will help Fidelity’s diversification drive succeed.
“Bob has the experience to not only bring in business but to build the organization with a safe, sound, and compliant structure,” he said.
Fidelity has only one branch. Mr. Watkins said it plans to open at least three in the Washington region this year and that it wants to hire at least three more lenders.
To fund this growth, Fidelity needs capital. Mr. Watkins said it has nearly exhausted the $15 million that it initially raised and will count on its new chairman to help it raise an additional $20 million.
Mr. Pincus brings with him a Rolodex thick with contacts in the business community. He is on the board of the retail real development giant Mills Corp. of Arlington, Va.; the chairman of Milestone Capital Partners LP, a leveraged buyout fund in Washington; and a trustee of University of Maryland Foundation Inc. and American University.
Mr. Pincus said that aside from raising funds privately, Fidelity is also looking to go public in the not-too-distant future. He said he sees the bank growing even faster than others he has run, because technology has made product expansion more efficient.
But he was quick to add that Fidelity is not trying to bulk up to make itself more attractive to prospective buyers.
“Franklin was sold because it grew and grew but did not have a wide array of products,” he said. “But today it is easier to get these products and services because of technology.”
