Premier Targets Business Niche - By Richard Craver
WINSTON SALEM JOURNAL REPORTER

GREENSBORO - The financial needs of small- and medium-size businesses are the target niche of a proposed commercial bank with Triad-wide aspirations.
Premier Commercial Bank is applying for a banking charter from the N.C. Commissioner of Banks, said Frank Gavigan, the president and chief executive of the proposed bank.
The bank’s goal is to open its first branch in Greensboro by early 2008, followed by a branch in Winston-Salem and one in High Point “as soon as it makes good sense from a capital, people and regulatory standpoint,” he said.

Gavigan has 25 years of banking experience, including 15 years as the senior credit officer for First State Bank in Burlington. Ed Swing Jr., the chief financial officer, has served in a similar role for banks based in Durham, Gastonia and Graham.
If approved, Premier would be the first business-only bank operating in the Triad and the fourth in the state, along with Paragon Commercial Bank in Raleigh and Bank of Commerce and First Trust Bank in Charlotte.

Premier plans to provide commercial products and services to businesses in the real-estate, medical, legal and financial sectors that have annual revenues ranging from $1 million to $30 million. It also will target nonprofit organizations. Although it will provide personal banking services to commercial customers, it will not take deposits from individual consumers.

“We believe we have the right business model at the right time for a Triad that has a growing small- and medium-size business sector,” Gavigan said. “There’s 20,000 companies we believe we can serve better with our focus on their needs rather than trying to be everything to everybody.

“We also are excited about the potential for the peripheral business connected to the FedEx hub and the airport area,” he said. FedEx’s cargo hub at Piedmont Triad International Airport is scheduled to open in June 2009. “We want to be ready to serve those businesses looking to capitalize on the hub.”

Analysts said that the Triad should have the market size and small-business density to support a business-only bank.

“The current economic climate is reasonably favorable toward new banks, and there seems to be no end to the number of North Carolina investors willing and able to invest in new bank stock offerings,” said Tony Plath, a finance professor at UNC Charlotte.

“The most important issue is the strength and quality of the proposed bank’s management team,” Plath said. “It calls for outstanding business bankers to pull off the business-only banking model successfully. The success of Premier will rest on the reputation, visibility and stature of its executive leadership team.”

Premier begins its public stock offering today. The stock is priced at $11 a share, and the minimum individual purchase is 3,000 shares. As part of its charter application, the proposed bank must raise at least $16 million. The bank’s officers and its 11-member board of directors, which includes a director from Winston-Salem, already have committed to buying $2.5 million in stock.

More information can be obtained at 323-1115. Gavigan said that Premier’s Web site, www.pcbnc.com, should be online next week.