As featured on the website Travilliannext.com on July 21, 2021
The business model at investment banking firms serving the regional and community bank sector over the past few decades has worked very well, helped by an extraordinary level of deal activity, with only brief periods of interruption along the way (i.e. the financial crisis of 2008; the COVID pandemic last year, etc.). The most successful firms had prominent investment bankers assigned to specific regions of the country, with the charge to essentially blanket their assigned region with “coverage”. This entailed developing relationships with the key decision makers at as many regional and community banks within their designated coverage area as possible. These key relationships, overall market intelligence, and dogged persistence in understanding and serving the needs of their clients, enhanced by the regional and/or national credibility of the firms that employed these bankers, was often a formula for success.
Banks would sometimes skip geographies in pursuit of M&A opportunities. These transactions tended to reflect a broader, fairly consistent trend, such as in the years just prior to the Great Recession, when banks in slower growth markets in the Midwest were attracted to faster growth dynamics in Florida. For instance, as a particular trend would develop, it was not unusual to see a Midwest-focused investment banker either establish relationships in another market like Florida, or pair up with another banker at their firm that specialized in that particular state or region of the country.
