We had a small but highly effective board of five people.
This is provided for perspective.
There is no right or wrong answer for the size of your board.
Ours happened to be the minimum size allowed by state statute (we were a state-chartered bank).
We felt that size was more...
Any whisper of a potential sale of your bank will decrease the value of the shares and will have your competitors calling your employees and your customers.
The board has an implicit confidentiality agreement they are always operating under.
Legend has it, that whenever word...
You may think it is your general counsel.
It may be.
But maybe not.
Consider this…
If your bank’s general counsel is actively involved in bank M&A transactions, particularly sell-side bank M&A transactions, they may be.
If they are less than...
We spent time in the last newsletter (The Savvy Banker 029) discussing the first of the top 10 tips for first meetings between you and a potential buyer. Today, we’re going to focus on top tips two through ten.
We focused on the importance of moving the potential buyer(s) from...
Everybody is counting on you to deliver.
You’ve never done it before.
You don’t quite know what to expect.
Or, how to prepare.
“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”
Conversations have taken place between the investment bankers and...
For this newsletter, I am going to assume you have hired an investment banker.
I am also going to assume the board has chosen to go the route of “strategic approach” in going to the market. (For a refresher on the three types of approaches, see The Savvy Banker 005).
You plan...
In the six or seven years leading up to the board’s decision to explore whether our bank would be of interest to a buyer, we invited an investment banker as a guest speaker at our Annual Meeting of the Shareholders.
The importance of having a relationship with an investment...
When you bring serious people to the table, you are signaling to your potential buyer pool,
“We are serious.”
Your advisor team are the serious people you are bringing to the table.
Your investment banker, your lawyer, and your accountant.
For those who may...
In 2017, our bank was eleven years old.
Our loan-to-deposit ratio was running consistently at 100%+.
We had $40 million borrowed on our Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) line of credit.
We had $60 million in bonds that we were holding in an unrealized loss position in at the time.
The...
Every day as a bank CEO, you struggle to balance plates on sticks.
Competitive threats, talent management, management succession, asset quality, liquidity, cybersecurity threats, interest rates, regulatory compliance, regulatory overreach, capital planning, along with customer and...
As a bank CEO you are familiar with acting as a fiduciary.
We all can become “house blind” to the specifics of those duties.
Reviewing the fiduciary duties of good faith, care, and loyalty are helpful, especially when selling the bank.
Directors should ensure they are...
In Part 1 of this newsletter, we discussed the importance of making yourself replaceable as CEO.
That requires hiring the right people, developing them, and protecting your investment of time and resources.
You have perhaps kissed more than your fair share of toads along the...
