Civic Bank CEO seeks path to profitability

Sarah Meyerrose has a clear directive from the board as she takes over the helm of Civic Bank & Trust:

Get the investors above water.

The Nashville-based bank, with $142 million in total assets, has fluctuated between losses and profitability since opening in 2005, and the shareholders who helped launch it are looking for returns, said Meyerrose, who recently was named CEO. She replaces Bob Perry, who had led the bank since 2008.

“It’s my job to get the valuation of the bank to a point where the board and shareholders have a lot of options,” she said. “(My) team needs to get (to) profitability by acquiring customers, finding good loans.”

In three to five years, Meyerrose wants shareholders, who invested close to $20 million in the bank in 2005, to be able to choose between generating returns by remaining an independent bank, merging with another bank or cashing out entirely. Right now, investors would take a loss if the bank sold, which is unacceptable, she said.

Civic Bank was founded by Anil Patel, a Clarksville, Tenn.-based physician. It was part of a wave of local community bank openings in the middle of the last decade after a series of bank mergers left a void in the marketplace for smaller banks. Civic Bank was created shortly before CapStar Bank, Avenue Bank and Franklin Synergy Bank, all of which are hovering around $1 billion in assets.

Meyerrose said the bank’s shareholders were not necessary seeking fast growth but wanted a profitable bank that served its customers well. Three years after it opened, the bank was ensnared by the 2008 financial meltdown.

Perry left the bank with a clean balance sheet, a strong capital base and strong lending opportunities that have relieved Meyerrose from fighting the “demons of problem loans,” she said. She wants to convert the bank’s securities portfolio into more loans to boost returns and sees opportunities in the city’s growing population of small- and medium-size businesses that would benefit from more tailored banking services. She also plans on expanding the bank’s trust services to more small businesses and individuals.

Meyerrose spent more than 27 years at First Horizon National Corp., parent company of First Tennessee Bank, serving as president of the bank’s emerging business segment. More recently, she co-founded e-commerce company Paytopia and led her own business consulting company. Her experiences on both sides of lending have helped shape her understanding of small-business needs, she said.

“It’s our job to get to know their business, to understand the challenges (business owners) have and provide solutions ... for them to be able to achieve their goal,” she said. “People creating the companies, coming up with these great ideas, they are not CEOs or CFOs when they start out.”

Reach Jamie McGee at 615.259.8071 and on Twitter @JamieMcGee_.