Two Texas banks reached an out-of-court settlement in their dispute over the defection of one bank's lenders and customers to the other's.
State National Bank, a $1.9 billion-asset Fort Worth unit of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA, filed a suit in June claiming that several of its lenders who were hired by the $2.3 billion-asset Amarillo National Bank stole customer information before they left State National. The lenders are helping organize a Lubbock start-up partially funded by Amarillo National's owners.
The suit, field in Ector County District Court, claims that the lenders then used the information to solicit State National's customers and persuade them to move their loans to the Amarillo National Bancorp Inc. unit.
Late last month State National won a temporary restraining order prohibiting its former employees from going after its customers.
The settlement was announced last week. The details were not disclosed, but Wade Porter, an executive vice president at Amarillo National Bank, said that the restraining order no longer restricts the lenders, who are working out of loan production offices his bank recently opened in Lubbock and Odessa.
Since BBVA bought State National in February, roughly two dozen of the bank's employees have left to join the Lubbock start-up. Several of the lenders are booking loans through Amarillo National until the Lubbock bank receives approval to open for business. The loans and offices will be transferred once the start-up is approved.
State National said in early court filings that it had lost about $88 million, or 8%, of its loan portfolio to Amarillo National.
