First Guaranty Bancshares in Hammond, Louisiana, said it hired a lending team to expand into Kentucky and West Virginia.
The progression from the $2.8 billion-asset First Guaranty’s footprint in Louisiana and Texas into the new states also builds on ties established by Chairman Marshall Reynolds, a longtime resident of Huntington, West Virginia, the company said Monday.
Mike Mineer, former CEO of Citizens Deposit Bank and Trust, leads the team that includes a regional manager for each state, seven lenders, two loan processors and a mortgage loan processor. Citizens was a subsidiary of Premier Financial Bancorp in Huntington, where Reynolds had been chairman.
“With this knowledgeable team in place, we can continue to lend in the way we know how and give our customers the top-notch service they deserve,” Alton Lewis, president and CEO of First Guaranty, said in a press release.
First Guaranty is among a growing number of community banks to take advantage of market disruption in the wake of M&A by
When banks are sold, bankers on both sides of the deal often reevaluate their career options and consider offers from competitors. This activity accelerated in 2021 — and continues into this year — as an effect of steady consolidation across the industry. There were more than 200 bank acquisitions announced last year, far more than the 111 deals in all of 2020, according to S&P Global data.
“No question, really good teams of revenue generators are in high demand,” Charles Wendel, president of Financial Institutions Consulting, said in a recent interview. It is “absolutely true that after mergers the culture of some companies changes, and talented people decide it’s time to try something new. So we are going to see more of this because of both the pace of M&A and the very real push to hire new” people after deals.
