Truist
Truist Financial Corporation is an American bank holding company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. The company was formed in December 2019 as the result of the merger of BB&T and SunTrust. Its bank operates 1,928 branches in 15 states and Washington, D.C., offering consumer, commercial, and investment banking, securities brokerage, asset management, mortgage, and insurance products and services. It is on the list of largest banks in the United States by assets; as of May 2025, it is the tenth-largest bank, with $523 billion in assets.
History
History of BB&T
In 1872, Alpheus Branch and Thomas Jefferson Hadley founded the Branch and Hadley merchant bank in their hometown of Wilson, North Carolina. After many transactions, mostly with local farmers, Branch bought out Hadley's shares in 1887 and renamed the company Branch and Company, Bankers. Also in 1887, the bank moved to its new headquarters on Nash Street in downtown Wilson, North Carolina. Two years later, Branch, his father-in-law Gen. Joshua Barnes, Hadley, and three other men secured a charter from the North Carolina General Assembly to operate the Wilson Banking and Trust Company. After many more name changes, the company finally settled on the name Branch Banking and Trust Company. Branch remained an active member of the company until his death in 1893. The 1903 Branch Banking and Trust Company Building at Wilson was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.BB&T sold Liberty Bonds during World War I and grew to have more than $4 million in assets by 1923. BB&T Insurance Services was added in 1922 and a mortgage division was added in 1923. Even though banks across the United States failed as a result of the 1929 Stock Market Crash, BB&T survived; it was the only one to do so in the town of Wilson.
History of Southern National Bank
In 1897, the Bank of Lumberton was started by Angus Mclean in Lumberton, North Carolina, the predecessor of Southern National. The founding board members of the bank were Angus Mclean, Thomas McNeill, R.D. Caswell, C.B. Townsend, S.A. Edmund, R.L. Steele, W.L.F. Steel, T.C. Guthrie, H.B. Jennings. The board was composed of members from Lumberton, Rockingham, North Carolina, and Bennettsville, South Carolina. Thomas McNeill was selected to be the bank's first president. He resigned a year later, when he was appointed as a judge. After McNeill resigned Mclean became president. Mclean did not simply view himself as a banker, he wanted to build companies that had a good return on their investment, created jobs, and benefited the communities they operated within. In 1955 Hector MacLean, Angus Mclean's son, was named president. The Bank of Lumberton changed its names to Southern National Bank in 1959.In 1979, the Carolina State Bank of Gastonia, started in 1971, became part of Southern National. In 1982, Southern National took over Winston-Salem-based Forsyth Bank & Trust, led by Glenn Orr.
In 1985, Southern National had assets of $1.5 billion. With the purchase of a former Northwestern Bank branch in Hickory, which had to be sold after the First Union-Northwestern merger, Southern National had 99 branches in 26 counties. In 1986, Southern National Corporation entered South Carolina with the $10 million purchase of Horry County National Bank of Loris. Later that year, Southern National announced the $5.6 million purchase of First Palmetto Bancshares Corp. of Columbia and the $9.75 million purchase of Capital Bank and Trust Co. of Belton. At the time, Southern National was North Carolina's seventh-largest banking company. Also in 1986, Southern National sold its Southern National Mortgage Co. to NCNB for an estimated $7 million. Southern National had not intended to sell the business but NCNB made a good offer, and the bank could use the money for its South Carolina purchases. NCNB had exited the mortgage business in 1981 to concentrate on interstate banking, though NCNB bought Bank of North Carolina in 1982 and sold that bank's mortgages to Southern National. In May 1989, Southern National announced its purchase of Allied Bankshares Inc. of Thomson, Georgia. The $59 million deal fell apart but would have been the first acquisition of a Georgia bank by a mid-sized N.C. bank. Another failed deal in 1990 would have given Southern National $1 billion in South Carolina assets and 53 offices in the state. NBSC had $540 million in assets, while Southern National Corp. had $3.4 billion and was N.C.'s fifth largest bank holding company. NBSC shareholders objected to the $53 million deal.
In 1990, Hector MacLean retired from the bank. During his presidency, the bank changed its name, grew from $3 million in assets to $3.3 billion, and grew to 148 branches. MacLean's successor was Glenn Orr. Early in 1993, Southern National completed its purchase of First Federal Savings Bank in Winston-Salem, putting Southern National behind only Wachovia in Forsyth County deposits. Southern National had $4.5 billion in assets, $3.9 billion of those in North Carolina, and was the state's sixth largest banking company. The company's North Carolina banking operations began moving to Winston-Salem, though Orr and the corporate headquarters stayed in Lumberton. One reason for the move was the 20-story, One Triad Park, which had of space Southern National could move into immediately. One of the other contenders, Greensboro, would not have a new building ready, and the bank would need a temporary home. With Southern National taking on eight floors, the building's name changed to Southern National Financial Center on May 3.
Also in 1993, Southern National announced the purchase of Goldsboro-based East Coast Federal Savings Bank, with $256 million in assets, which Orr called "one of the best savings banks in the state." The deal would make Southern National number one in deposits in Fayetteville, the state's fifth-largest banking market. In 1993, Southern National announced the acquisition of First Savings Bank, FSB, headquartered in Greenville, South Carolina. With just over $2 billion in assets, it was the third largest financial institution in South Carolina. Orr, along with BB&T Chairman John Allison, helped facilitate the Southern Nation BB&T merger.
Merger with Southern National Bank
In 1995, the bank merged with Southern National Bank, another bank with roots in the eastern part of the state. This gave BB&T 437 branches in 220 cities in the Carolinas and Virginia. The merged company became Southern National Corp., but all of its banking subsidiaries took the BB&T name. With $19 billion in assets, BB&T had the most North Carolina deposits and branches of any bank. Southern National head Glenn Orr and new BB&T chairman John Allison said the merger likely created a bank that would be too rich to be taken over by an out-of-state bank. Orr retired once the merger was complete. The headquarters became BB&T Financial Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.In 1997, Southern National Corp. took over United Carolina Bank, another eastern North Carolina–based bank, in a $985 million deal announced in November 1996. UCB had $4.5 billion in assets. 400 employees worked in Whiteville but despite losing the headquarters, the town would eventually have 500 BB&T employees working at a 250-employee call center and other operations. Starting September 22, 1997, 91 UCB branches began the process of changing to BB&T, and 67 other branches of the two banks closed starting in October because they were close to other BB&T locations.
On May 19, 1997, Southern National Corp. changed its name to BB&T Corp. and its stock symbol SN to BBT.
Acquisitions
The bank continued to expand nationwide through the 1990s, purchasing Fidelity Financial Bankshares, First Financial of Petersburg, Maryland, Maryland Federal Bancorp, and Franklin Bancorporation. In 1998, BB&T acquired MainStreet Financial of Martinsville, Virginia, and Mason-Dixon Bancshares of Westminster, Maryland, and further expanded into Georgia and West Virginia after purchasing First Liberty of Macon, Georgia, and Matewan Bancshares.-In 2000, BB&T purchased One Valley Bancorp, which was itself formed from a combination of community banks throughout West Virginia. This move gave BB&T the largest bank presence in West Virginia. In 2002, BB&T completed its acquisition of MidAmerica Bancorp of Louisville, Kentucky. and AREA Bancshares Corporation of Owensboro, Kentucky. In 2003, BB&T completed its acquisition of First Virginia Banks of Falls Church, Virginia. In 2005, the bank acquired Main Street Banks of metro Atlanta for $622 million. In 2006, the bank acquired Coastal Federal Bank, based in Myrtle Beach.
In late 2008, the bank accepted $3.1 billion in bailout money through the sale of preferred shares to the U.S. Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program. In June 2009, the bank repurchased the shares. In July 2008, the company acquired Puckett, Scheetz & Hogan. In December 2008, the company acquired J. Rolfe Davis. On August 14, 2009, the bank acquired Colonial Bank after its seizure by the FDIC. This acquisition added more than 340 branches in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, and Texas, along with approximately $22 billion in assets. BB&T sold the Nevada branch to U.S. Bancorp in January 2010.
The company acquired Atlantic Risk Management. In November 2011, the company acquired Precept, an employee benefits consulting firm. In July 2012, the bank acquired BankAtlantic, and its $2.1 billion in loans and $3.3 billion in deposits. The company also began selling flood insurance online. In December 2013, the bank acquired 21 Citigroup branches in Texas for $36 million, adding $1.2 billion in deposits. In September 2014, the bank acquired 41 more Citigroup branches, adding $2.3 billion in deposits.
In June 2015, the bank acquired Bank of Kentucky for $363 million, which added $1.9 billion in assets and gave BB&T a presence in the Northern Kentucky-Cincinnati market and its first branches in Ohio. In August 2015, the bank acquired Susquehanna Bank for $2.5 billion, adding 240 branches and $18.7 billion in assets, and marking the bank's entry into Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In April 2016, the company acquired Swett & Crawford, a wholesale insurance broker. In April 2016, the bank acquired National Penn for $1.8 billion, which added 124 branches in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland, $9.6 billion in assets, and $6.7 billion in deposits. On August 29, 2018, BB&T announced as many as 630 employees would move from its former corporate headquarters on West Nash Street in Wilson to a $35 million, 95,000-square-foot facility on Pine Street. On October 16, 2018, BB&T announced plan to move 500 employees into a 100,000-square-foot, $10 million building in Whiteville, N.C.
In May 2022, Truist announced the organisation had acquired the 12-person San Francisco based, gamified financial technology start-up company Long Game Savings inc. The monetary value paid for the company has been left undisclosed.