Tennessee's fastest growing bank announced today that it has closed its purchase of the parent company of the Bank of North Carolina.
Two years after acquiring CapitalMark in Chattanooga and Magna Bank in Memphis, Pinnacle Financial Partners, Inc. completed its $2 billion purchase of BNC Bancorp. The move will bring Pinnacle's urban community banking model into seven new markets in the Carolinas and Virginia. Additionally Bank of North Carolina, BNC's wholly-owned bank subsidiary, merged with and into Pinnacle Bank, Pinnacle's wholly-owned bank subsidiary.
"We believe the Carolinas, Virginia and Tennessee have some of the strongest commercial banking markets in the country with significant growth opportunities for our combined firm," said M. Terry Turner, Pinnacle's president and chief executive officer. "We offer a distinctive level of service where clients get a community bank experience with the resources and sophistication of a larger firm. BNC and Pinnacle have deployed similar business models for years. Our goal with the transition is that while clients may notice the signs change, they won't experience any degradation in how their bankers interact with them."
BNC's President and Chief Executive Officer Rick Callicutt will serve as Pinnacle's chairman of the Carolinas and Virginia and will l join Pinnacle's board of directors along with three others from BNC's board: Abney S. Boxley, Thomas Sloan and G. Kennedy Thompson.
"Since the beginning, Terry has stressed that authority for driving business and setting goals would remain with BNC's bankers," Callicutt said. "That's one of the big reasons why it made so much sense for us to partner with Pinnacle."
Pinnacle's new markets include Charlotte, Raleigh, Winston-Salem and Greensboro in North Carolina; Greenville-Spartanburg and Charleston in South Carolina; and Roanoke in Virginia. BNC's offices in High Point, NC will operate as the area headquarters.
"Closing this transaction in less than five months, I believe, speaks volumes to the commitment and dedication of our and BNC's associates, the buy-in of shareholders and clients and the relationships we have worked hard to develop with our regulators and within our communities," Turner said.