Pinnacle Financial Partners Wins M&A Award for Merger with BNC Bancorp

Integration is wrapping up just under one year since the deal was announced

Nearly one year after announcing its largest acquisition to date, Pinnacle Financial Partners is now finishing the integration of its award-winning merger with BNC Bancorp. The deal nearly doubled Pinnacle’s size by combining the two companies into one firm that spans four states and 11 markets.

“Our integration with BNC was one the biggest challenges we have faced as a company, but our associates on all sides pulled together to make it a success,” said Terry Turner, Pinnacle’s president and CEO. “Bottom line: Our clients are better off today than they were a year ago because of our increased capabilities and deeper well of resources to help them reach their financial goals.”

Late in 2017, the merger of Pinnacle with BNC was named “Corporate/Strategic Deal of the Year (Over $1 Billion)” by The M&A Advisor. More than 280 nominees representing 650 companies were considered as finalists for the M&A Advisor Awards. An independent judging panel selected the winners.

“The award recipients represent the finest in the M&A industry in 2017 and earned these honors by standing out in a group of extremely impressive finalists,” said David Ferguson, Co-CEO and president of The M&A Advisor. “We are recognizing the leading transactions, firms and individuals that represent the highest levels of achievement.”

Along with Pinnacle and BNC, the following business partners who worked on the deal were honored:

• Bass, Berry & Sims, PLC
• Banks Street Partners
• Davis, Polk & Wardwell LLP
• P. Morgan
• Keefe, Bruyette & Woods
• Sandler O’Neill & Partners
• Troutman Sanders LLP
• Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz

Since closing the merger in June 2017, Pinnacle leaders have been working to build a strong commercial and industrial (C&I) banking program in the legacy BNC markets. The key to this buildout is hiring financial advisors with deep wells of experience. Turner and Rick Callicutt, Pinnacle’s chairman of the Carolinas and Virginia, set an aggressive goal of hiring 64 C&I advisors over the next five years. So far, hiring is on pace to meet it.

As Pinnacle wraps up the final loose ends in systems conversions, focus continues on cultural conversion – which began immediately after the deal was announced. Turner personally has led a dozen three-day orientation sessions for associates in the Carolinas and Virginia, with several more on his calendar for 2018. The purpose of these events is to instill the company’s values, philosophies and practices in associates. It has consistently been seen as a key driver of Pinnacle’s associate engagement and success in merger integrations.

“Cultural integration with BNC has been wildly successful,” Turner said. “We started laying the groundwork almost a year ago because it is by far the most important piece of any deal we do. You can fix systems and processes if they go awry. But if you have a cultural mismatch, your deal is likely sunk from the very beginning. Luckily, we started with a good match in BNC, and my experience in orientation has shown that we’re all on the same page, ready to work for our clients and each other.”