Bank oversells target with $5.6M capital raise

SARASOTA — Local banker Neil McCurry has succeeded where few other peers have lately: He completed a capital raise for a community bank that went so well it oversold its original goal.

In fact, McCurry, with Sarasota-based Sabal Palm Bank, led a stock offering that raised $5.6 million — $1.6 million more than the original goal of $4 million, according to a release. McCurry, in conjunction with a prior agreement has been named CEO of the bank, which had $83.3 million in assets at the end of 2012. Sabal Palm founder Brian Hall, according to the release, will remain president and both executives will have a seat on the bank's board.

Bank officials have previously said the capital raise wasn't an effort to shore up its balance sheet. Now the bank, according to McCurry, expects to use the new capital to grow its loan and deposit base and add products and services.

The market for investing in community banks has been weak lately, given the recession, the release points out. Many of the banks that have been able to raise money did so from non-local investors, where control and ownership changed hands. But McCurry, who founded People's Community Bank in Sarasota in 1999, says the capital raise didn't take on any shareholders that own more than 5% of outstanding shares. The bank, adds McCurry, also didn't pay any investment advisors to assist with the stock offering.

In addition to the capital raise, Sabal Palm, founded in 2006, announced that longtime local banker Rick Halloran was named senior lending officer. Halloran was most recently the market president for Cadence Bank, and he was a top loan officer for McCurry at People's Community Bank.