–Copyrighted Material; Do Not Forward, Photocopy, or Redistribute In Any Way– Vol. IX, No. 15 TOM BROWN’S BANKING WEEKLY: 4/12/24 Financial Services Insights and Intelligence FIRST WORD: Bringing some rational thinking to CRE loan quality.  The amount of misguided generalizations about bank commercial real estate lending continues to amaze me. I would argue that investor…

–Copyrighted Material; Do Not Forward, Photocopy, or Redistribute In Any Way– Vol. IX, No. 14 TOM BROWN’S BANKING WEEKLY: 4/5/24 Financial Services Insights and Intelligence FIRST WORD: Huntington Bancshares is leaning into growth. Steve Steinour took over as CEO of Huntington in 2009. At the time, the company was struggling with subprime mortgages it had acquired along…

–Copyrighted Material; Do Not Forward, Photocopy, or Redistribute In Any Way– Vol. IX, No. 13 TOM BROWN’S BANKING WEEKLY: 3/29/24 Financial Services Insights and Intelligence FIRST WORD: Stock Yards Bancorp keeps performing at a high level. This $8.2 billion banking company based in Louisville has one of the best growth and profitability records in the industry over…

–Copyrighted Material; Do Not Forward, Photocopy, or Redistribute In Any Way– Vol. IX, No. 12 TOM BROWN’S BANKING WEEKLY: 3/22/24 Financial Services Insights and Intelligence FIRST WORD: Candid thoughts from Zions CEO Harris Simmons. Many people love this time of year because it is the beginning of spring and it’s basketball’s March Madness. I love this…

–Copyrighted Material; Do Not Forward, Photocopy, or Redistribute In Any Way– Vol. IX, No. 11 TOM BROWN’S BANKING WEEKLY: 3/15/24 Financial Services Insights and Intelligence FIRST WORD: Customers Bancorp might have been the biggest winner from last year’s chaos. I wrote about Customers Bancorp a year ago, just before the failure of SVB and Signature and…

–Copyrighted Material; Do Not Forward, Photocopy, or Redistribute In Any Way– Vol. IX, No. 10 TOM BROWN’S BANKING WEEKLY: 3/8/24 Financial Services Insights and Intelligence FIRST WORD: First Horizon is headed to the new normal. Bryan Jordan joined First Horizon as CFO in 2007 and took over as CEO the following year after the prior CEO…

–Copyrighted Material; Do Not Forward, Photocopy, or Redistribute In Any Way– Vol. IX, No. 9 TOM BROWN’S BANKING WEEKLY: 3/1/24 Financial Services Insights and Intelligence FIRST WORD: Why are Americans so financially unhappy? While investors and the Fed are more worried about the strength of the economy, individuals are stressed out financially. The Conference Board…

–Copyrighted Material; Do Not Forward, Photocopy, or Redistribute In Any Way– Vol. IX, No. 8 TOM BROWN’S BANKING WEEKLY: 2/23/24 Financial Services Insights and Intelligence FIRST WORD: Buying Discover for $35 billion is not a fat pitch. You won’t find a bigger admirer of Capital One and its CEO, Rich Fairbank, than I have been over…

–Copyrighted Material; Do Not Forward, Photocopy, or Redistribute In Any Way– Vol. IX, No. 7 TOM BROWN’S BANKING WEEKLY: 2/16/24 Financial Services Insights and Intelligence FIRST WORD: The promising outlook for regional bank stocks. I believe a bank stock bull market started last May, as valuations became utterly washed out. Over the ensuing five months, the stocks…