TIB Financial Corp.’s recent growth in southwest Florida may reflect good planning, but Edward V. Lett, its president and chief executive officer, says luck helped.
In mid-2004 two of its largest competitors in Naples and Fort Myers announced that they were selling themselves.
At the time TIB, the $830 million-asset holding company for what was originally The Islamorada Bank, was just settling into a new Naples headquarters, more than 100 miles northwest from the old one, in Key Largo.
The company, which still operates mostly in the Florida Keys, said unrest in the southwest Florida was largely responsible for its significant deposit and loan growth last year. Mr. Lett is so bullish on prospects there that he predicts TIB’s assets will grow 20% this year, to $1 billion.
“We put together a very exciting and promising five-year plan not knowing about these mergers,” he said. “All of this is frosting on the cake, and it makes us jump and down to know that we are here to benefit.”
TIB, whose TIB Bank of the Keys is based in Key Largo, entered southwest Florida in 2001 with two branches, in Naples and Bonita Springs. It added another at the end of 2002 but was not expecting accelerated growth until last year’s fourth quarter, when two more were to open.
Mr. Lett said TIB was interested in southwest Florida because it was relatively close to home and growing fast. TIB has nearly 23% of Florida Keys deposits but less than 1% of those in Naples and Fort Myers.
Last month, though, Fifth Third Bancorp of Cincinnati bought the $5.5 billion-asset First National Bankshares Inc. of Florida, which was based in Naples and was No. 2 there. And in November, Wachovia Corp. of Charlotte bought SouthTrust Corp. of Birmingham, Ala. — the No. 5 player in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers market.
TIB is already benefiting from this deals. A third of its deposits are now in southwest Florida, up from 25% at the end of 2003. Deposits in its Bonita Springs branch, its oldest in the market, have doubled in the last six months, to nearly $75 million, making it TIB’s largest.
Mr. Lett also attributed TIB’s loan growth to relationships developed in southwest Florida in the last few months. Its loan book grew 21% last year, to $654 million.
In addition to the 40 people hired to staff the branches it opened last year, TIB hired four senior loan officers from the merged banks and First National’s former director of corporate communications.
“We were not planning on hiring new lenders,” Mr. Lett said. “But with all this market disruption we were flooded with resumes, so we decided to pick up a few very senior people.”
He said he expects to do more hiring and attract more deposits as the effects of mergers become more visible. First National’s signs are to change next week, and SouthTrust’s Florida branches are to become Wachovia branches in the late spring.
In January, to increase deposits, TIB began a campaign of radio spots and print ads to emphasize its Florida roots and its 30-year history of community banking.
Mr. Lett said he is confident that it can attract First National’s customers, because both companies catered to the same market: midsize businesses and basic retail banking customers. In contrast, many community banks in the southwest Florida are trying to capitalize on all the wealth and foreign investments there.
“A majority of banks are getting into wealth management and private banking, but that’s not us,” Mr. Lett said. “We are sticking to what we know best, and that’s middle-market commercial.”
Mark Muth, an analyst with First Horizon National Corp.’s FTN Midwest Research Securities Corp. in Memphis, said TIB should have easy pickings. Furthermore, he said, adding the fast-growing Naples market to the Keys should create a good balance.
“It’s a nice mix,” Mr. Muth said. “They can use their highly profitable and dominant market share in the Keys to fund growth in the Naples and southwest Florida.”
