Watching “tremendous growth” unfold in the St. Joseph market, Sturgis Bancorp’s recent $15-million debt offering will be used in part to continue that rapid pace through creation of a second full service Sturgis Bank & Trust branch for St. Joseph on Cleveland Avenue targeted for as early as March.
Sturgis Bancorp, the bank holding company for Sturgis Bank & Trust, established loan production offices in both St. Joseph and Portage over the past year and recently converted both into full service branches according to President & CEO Eric Eishen.
Eishen told reporters, “There is a lot of opportunity. Things are going well. As long as we can grow the bank profitably, why not?”
The conversion in Portage and St. Joe followed the hiring of several veteran bankers in those markets, and Eishen is ready to replicate the Portage trend after repeating the model with the hiring of veteran banker Bob Burch last fall as the new Community President in St. Joseph.
To aid in the process of their expansion planning, Sturgis Bancorp recently completed a $15-million debt offering to support additional growth across Michigan’s Great Southwest. The bank says they had two options to raise capital either by issuing debt or issuing additional shares. Inasmuch as additional shares would dilute the earnings of current shareholders, Eishen says the bank opted for the issuance of subordinate notes. They were assisted in that offering by Boenning & Scattergood, Inc. of West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia as financial advisers and placement agents with Warner Norcross + Judd of Grand Rapids as legal counsel.
The St. Joseph market is one that Eishen says, “We really did not have a very big presence in and where we were able to acquire some of the talent.” As a result, St. Joe and Portage are the main focal point of much of the bank’s current growth. The new St. Joseph branch planned for Cleveland Avenue is being prepped at the former site of an Old National Bank branch at Cleveland and Hilltop. Burch says they completely gutted the building and started from scratch with plans to outfit the facility with all brand new equipment, furnishings, and decor. New electronic signage will also be added to that site as renovations continue.
That second St. Joe location will bring Sturgis Bank & Trust up to 14 offices across the region. What started out as a loan production office on Main Street in downtown St. Joseph is now also a full-service branch.
Like Bob Burch, a number of experienced bankers who had been employed with much larger regional banks elected to depart amid widespread consolidation, especially as was the case when Chemical Financial merged with TCF. Now even the TCF name will disappear as it merges into Huntington Bancshares. Eishen says that veterans like Burch were drawn to Sturgis where “they have the power to make decisions” amid greater flexibility.
Eishen says, “Right now the stars are aligned for talent acquisition, and you can just keep doing what you’ve done and not grow, or take advantage of that opportunity right now,” and adds, “You strike when the iron’s hot, and right now the iron’s hot. There’s a lot of really high-quality bankers that are looking to come back into the community bank model.”
Sturgis Bancorp has witnessed steady growth over the past year. The bank wrapped up 3Q 2020 with assets in excess of $604.7-million which marks a 27.7-percent increase over the same quarter in the previous year, while they watched deposits grow by nearly 38-percent to $486.4-million.
