Cover Update: Creating a Banking Brand

Cover Update: Creating a Banking Brand

The Florida Bank Group in Tampa spent 2007 blending corporate cultures and creating a vision for what the company wants to be: a statewide network of banks that retain local management and local boards.

It is neo-traditional in its industry. The traditional: Banks merging. The new twist: Banks keeping local control.

"The timing we have for doing this, bringing these banks together, works very well," said Corey Coughlin, 61, CEO of Florida Bank Group, which he started in 2002.

2007 saw the company acquire the Bank of Tallahassee and Cygnet Private Bank of Ponte Vedra Beach. It already owned the Bank of St. Petersburg and the Bank of North Florida in Jacksonville.

All the banks in the chain are independent. Each has its own charter, president and local board. That model helps the bank chain attract the best talent, Coughlin says. The vision is to take the brand all over the state.

Couglin, who was born in Miami and grew up in St. Petersburg, has also leveraged personal business contacts. For example, the CEO of the Bank of Tallahassee, Nick Nixon, went to graduate banking school at LSU with Coughlin.

"The best people are the best performers," Coughlin says. "This is a terrific opportunity to bring into focus those people who want to build a bank or team."

The other value of local ownership is the differences in the Florida markets. The Bank of Tallahassee can't be run the way the Bank of North Florida is run.

Coughlin's goal is to be in all the major markets in Florida. He also is not ruling out trying this banking model in other states.

The former Marine and Purple Heart recipient is driven : "Were capitalists."

Florida is a good banking market for a number of reasons, including its positive in-migration, good population base and climate, he says.

Some of the recent banking trends in Florida are working in Coughlin's favor. Some investors started banks in Florida so they could sell them to a larger bank.

-Dave Szymanski