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Mountain
1st Bank and Trust’s proven business plan, proven team of bankers and heart for their
community is driving growth and bringing in new business
Financial
Community Bank
(MOBT-OTC:BB)
Mountain 1st Bank and Trust Company (NC)
101 Jack Street
Hendersonville, NC 28792
Phone: 828-692-8070
Greg Gibson
Chief Executive Officer
Interview conducted by:
Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor
CEOCFOinterviews.com
February 10, 2004
BIO:
Gregory L. Gibson (Greg)
Wife - Cathy
Home – Hendersonville, NC
Birthdate 5/7/57
Born in Burlington, North Carolina
BS in Accounting – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – 1980
Certified Public Accountant – Licensed to practice in North and South Carolina
Mr. Gibson has served as an executive officer for six community banking institutions prior
to the formation of Mountain 1st Bank & Trust Company, ranging in size from $50
million to $1 billion. He has twenty-five years experience in the industry.
Company Profile:
Mountain 1st Bank & Trust Company, one of the most rapidly growing community banks in
the Southeast, is a state-chartered, non-member community bank headquartered in
Hendersonville, N.C. Locations include, two offices in Hendersonville and offices in
Arden, Columbus and Waynesville.
CEOCFOinterviews:
Mr. Gibson, Mountain 1st is a new bank; why the need?
Mr. Gibson: "We followed a very successful start-up bank
by the name of MountainBank, which opened in 1997 and was acquired by South Financial
Group in late 2003. Our marketplace rewarded MountainBank by growing in five and one half
years to a billion dollars in size and its stock returned 530% to its charter
shareholders. We knew that there was a need and a demand for a strong community bank in
western North Carolina, of which there were none. There was only one other community bank
headquartered western North Carolina or about a third of the state, and that is a
relatively small one that is fairly stagnant. As a result of the demand in our marketplace
as well as the outstanding group of professionals we assembled, Mountain 1st has been
setting records since its inception. We subscribed more stock in our initial offering;
more stock than any other start-up ever had in the Carolinas, and in a shorter period, we
subscribed thirty-six million dollars in eighteen days to get the bank opened. We hit
$100,000,000 in assets in a little over three months, which is the fastest of any denovo
to have achieved that mark. We were profitable in our fourth month of operation, which is
the fastest of any denovo to hit profitability."
CEOCFOinterviews:
Why was it better to start a new bank and not keep the old one?
Mr. Gibson: "We ask that question ourselves. Thirty-four
of our first thirty-five employees worked together at MountainBank, so it’s obvious
that the bulk of the people in that company did not want to see it go away. It was the
decision of that company’s CEO, Chairman and Board to sell the company. Upon the sale
of that company, the majority of the its senior management group left to form Mountain 1st
because we didn’t believe the sale was in best interest of customers who desired to
have a community bank."
CEOCFOinterviews:
What is it that has accounted for your success?
Mr. Gibson: "In short, the answer is people. We hire
people who are people persons. We expect our people to greet customers by name. We design
the offices to be warm, friendly and inviting. We have gourmet coffee machines and we put
everybody through coffee 101; you walk in, pick your flavor of coffee and we make them
coffee one-at-a-time as the customers come through. We have rocking chairs on the front
porch of some of our offices, we bake cookies for customers on Fridays in several offices
and we have self service coin counting machines. Regularly, we wear business casual attire
with logo shirts rather than coats and ties. Our customers have told us this makes them
feel more comfortable and at ease in our offices. All these things have been put in place
to make our the experience of entering one of our office favorable and repeatable."
CEOCFOinterviews:
Will you tell us about the economy in the area where you serve?
Mr. Gibson: "Our target market initially is five
counties in western North Carolina, inclusive of Buncombe county and Asheville. We are
headquartered in Hendersonville, about twenty miles south of Asheville, which is the metro
hub for western North Carolina. The economy is primarily driven by tourism, retirees
relocating to the area and the resulting real estate development or this migration and
small mom-and-pop type businesses. We don’t have a lot of heavy manufacturing
although we do have a few large manufacturers. Most economic activity is generated by
small business, which is what are best suited to serve. Since we are local and live and
work in the area, we can understand our business customers needs much better than a credit
analyst from Charlotte, Baltimore, New York or even Canada. We can go to their shops and
see what they need and then custom tailor products for them. People appreciate you
spending time listening to them and hear what they need and then being responsive."
CEOCFOinterviews:
How do you reach potential customers?
Mr. Gibson: "We try to cultivate a sales network that
extends far beyond our staff. Our most effective means for reaching potential customers is
by word-of-mouth from our customers and shareholders. In our IPO, we intentionally tried
to get as many shareholders as we could and we wound up with nearly 2,500 people owning
this company. This is probably four times the number of shareholders that a typical
start-up bank would have and the intent is was to turn them into customers and turn them
into a sales force. That has worked very well. One of the components of our business plan
is to create ‘buzz’. We do that by talking up all the different things that are
going on in the bank through press releases, four-color newsletters and advertising
through all kinds of general media. We get our customers involved in the things that are
going on in our company and make them feel a part. As an example, we had a barbeque last
summer as a grand opening event for the bank. We had upwards of 4000 people to attend that
event. There was an amazing participation by the community."
CEOCFOinterviews:
You have a new main office that opened last month; will you tell us about that and what
plans you have for future branches?
Mr. Gibson: "Our main office opened at the end of
November and it was our fourth office. Our fifth office will be opened in about two or
three weeks (January 2005). Our main office is about 10,000 square feet. It is designed so
that we can grow into it and we think it will serve us well probably up to close to a
billion dollars. We designed it to give that warm friendly feeling, so that it looks like
it belongs in the mountains, with stucco and timber; it looks like a lodge. We feel that
the image and impression and the total feel that we are trying to create is important in
the architecture of the bank, to make it friendly and inviting. We have five counties that
we are concentrating on through 2006. We have our fifth branch coming in January. By the
end of 2006, I would expect us to have as many as twelve to fifteen offices open. We want
to cover this area well, and then we will expand geographically from there."
CEOCFOinterviews:
That is an ambitious plan, is it not?
Mr. Gibson: "It is! This group was instrumental in
building MountainBank from zero to a billion dollars in about five or six years and it is
more or less the same group. They are adept at building branches. Our limiting factor will
be the ability to continue to find good people that have the same philosophy that we do
and that are good business people. If we can continue to find those people, I think our
business plan will be executed well and we will continue to be very successful at
it."
CEOCFOinterviews:
Are there services that you plan to add for your customers?
Mr. Gibson: "Yes, a little further down the road, we
will include some investment services and trust and wealth management services. We may
investigate the demand for insurance services, however one of the keys to our business
model is to focus on our core competencies and be the absolute best at what we do.
Ancillary business lines may be attractive at some point, but I do not expect they will
ever divert our attention of our primary mission, bread and butter banking. "
CEOCFOinterviews:
Will you tell us about community involvement for the bank?
Mr. Gibson: "I guess most community banks would tell you
that they are very involved in the community; we certainly are. During our first year of
operation, we have participated with or contributed to at least 25 or 30 different
charities. We have folks on the board at our local chamber and The United Way. We work
with rescue missions here, so we really encourage all of our folks to pick a cause in
which they are interested and get involved in giving back to the community. We keep in
mind that one of our goals is to serve our communities in whatever ways we can."
CEOCFOinterviews:
Why should potential investors be interested in your stock?
Mr. Gibson: "We don’t think like a start-up bank,
we think like a billion-dollar bank we just don’t have the chronology yet to have
amassed a balance sheet of that magnitude. However, that is our goal and expectation, to
be a billion-dollar bank in seven or eight years through purely organic growth. Our goal
is not to be the next Bank of America, but to be a regional force for western North
Carolina for a number of years. Mountain 1st has broken virtually all records in the
Carolinas for bank start ups which provides some insight into the caliber of the people
associated with the company as well as the acceptance of the company by its marketplace.
Our business plan is proven and we have a vision of where we want to go and how to get
there."
CEOCFOinterviews:
You have already had a stock spurt; would you like to comment on that in closing!
Mr. Gibson: "We have, which is another record. Our stock
has had an astonishing performance. In less than a year, our stock has appreciated from
the IPO price of $11 per share to a high of $34 per share. As a result of this stellar
performance, our Board recently announced a 5 for 4 stock split. This is the earliest any
start-up bank in the Carolinas has been able to do so. We expect a secondary stock
offering to be coming along in the spring. We have a lot of momentum in this company and
in the stock."
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