ServisFirst Bancshares, Inc. (SFBS)’s Fourth Quarter 2014 Earnings Conference Call Transcript

Thomas Broughton – President & CEO
That’s a good question. Kevin, we’ve said since we started the bank 2005 that we are just looking for a good bank and a good market. We don’t have any. We don’t have a idea of putting pins in a map. But South Carolina, I think and that’d be a roadshow because if you were interested in and I said South Carolina. And the reason why is very thoughtfully very similar to what we are used to. It is a great growth market. I mean there’s good potential growth in South Carolina. There is a vibrant market. We found that office space is very expensive in Charleston which is a sign that it’s a really good market. So we are optimistic about it and we have a fairly wide connection of contacts in the industry and meet people all the time. We are talking to two other bank CEOs in two other markets that are of interest to us and we’re just try to be opportunistic and we think it’s a ServisFirst in South Carolina.

Q: And Tom when you look at the South East as a big region, when you look at the different States you are in right now, your own turf is Alabama, you have a LPO in Nashville, you’ve getting this toeholds in Atlanta through the acquisition and now into South Carolina. When you are talking new markets from here, will they most likely be in the existing States you are currently in or not necessarily you’d be willing to look at any other States within South East?

Thomas Broughton – President & CEO
I mean we would look at, I mean I guess you are saying, you know we probably are looking to go west particularly. So that would, there’s nothing wrong with shifting into Louisiana but it’s probably not the direction that we are facing in and probably to answer your question and the people we are talking to are primarily located in Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina. We think that’s a nice, there’s a lot of potential growth in those four states for ServisFirst and again, we try to be very targeted in where we choose to compete. We feel good about Nashville team. We have a team there that has a very laser focus on what they want to do and are doing and are doing a good job of building and getting good yields. And again in Atlanta we think there’s a great opportunity. In Atlanta there are not many banks like our size and there are a lot of big banks in Atlanta and there are a lot of small banks in Atlanta, small community banks but there aren’t any mid-sized banks that can serve the C&I market and we think that’s a opportunity in Atlanta for us.

Q: Okay, great. That’s helpful. Thanks guys.

Thomas Broughton – President & CEO
Thank you Kevin.

Operator
The next question will come from Brad Milsaps of Sandler O’Neill. Please go ahead.

Q: Hey, Tom, Bud.

Thomas Broughton – President & CEO
Morning.

William Foshee – CFO
Hey, morning Brad.