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Aliant Bank buys Southern Capital

BIRMINGHAM BUSINESS JOURNAL - MARCH 11, 2005
BY Kelli Dugan
STAFF

In a bid to capitalize on the strength of its residential construction financing business, Aliant Bank has acquired Southern Capital Resources and will dissolve its own Aliant Mortgage Corp. to absorb the new division.

Dave Bair, Aliant's chief executive, says the strategy has been a long-range goal for several years, and Southern Capital presented the greatest opportunity for the bank to tighten its grasp on the local housing market.

Aliant, he says, consistently ranks among the top three real estate lenders in the Birmingham metropolitan area, but the majority of that volume has come from residential construction. In short, Aliant now wants to take a bigger bite out of the residential market for which it already is financing the construction.

"We've been a major provider in residential construction financing for four or five years and wanted to penetrate that customer base with permanent financing. This acquisition gives us the opportunity to do that," Bair says.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Bair did say all Southern Capital employees have become Aliant Bank employees and all employees of the now-defunct Aliant Mortgage Corp. remain employed with the company under its new division.

Steve Hines, who founded Southern Capital in Birmingham 15 years ago, has been named senior vice president of the Southern Capital division of Aliant Bank.

"I would never have considered this if it hadn't been the perfect fit. I challenged it every step of the way and tried to think of every reason not to do it, but there just wasn't a downside," Hines says.

kdugan@bizjournals.com - 205.443.5628

 
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