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Area growth spurs SCB&T’s expansion
By Dan McCue
Staff Writer
South Carolina Bank and Trust’s new loan production office in the heart of downtown Charleston is just the beginning of an all-out push by the financial institution to establish a foothold in the Lowcountry.
In April, the 72-year-old bank and trust will open another new loan office on Daniel Island.
The long-term plan, according to Robert Hill, SCB&T’s president and CEO, is to establish another five to seven branches in Charleston County during the next several years.
SCB&T, which has 32 locations statewide, already has branches in Summerville and Moncks Corner.
“If you look at our footprint, you can see that our strategy over the years has been to aggressively position ourselves as South Carolina’s community bank,” Hill said. “Frankly, the time is right for this kind of expansion into Charleston. Compare the projected growth rate for Charleston County to just about any community in the Southeast, and the market is about as good as it gets.”
To make sure the effort gets off on the right foot, SCB&T has hired executives with a deep background in the Charleston area.
Bill Medich, formerly a Charleston area executive with Carolina First, will join SCB&T as area executive and senior vice president. His responsibilities will include managing the bank’s commercial lending efforts and growing its market presence.
Chris Claussen, a Charleston native and a former commercial real estate lending manager with Carolina First, will join SCB&T as senior vice president and will be responsible for building SCB&T’s commercial real estate portfolio in the region.
Cassandra Padgett, who was formerly with Home Federal and has been working out of SCB&T’s Summerville branch for about four years, will initially oversee the new Daniel Island office and will serve the area’s mortgage lending needs.
Although both the Meeting Street location and the Daniel Island office will concentrate solely on lending initially, both will quickly expand their services to include savings, checking and other community banking services, Hill said.
“We’re starting with only loan services because, frankly, it simply takes time to go through the regulatory process for a host of services,” Hill said.
Claussen, who earned a degree in economics from the College of Charleston, said in his 25 years in the banking business here, he has never seen anything like the kind of explosive growth that’s going on now.
“People are moving into the market from all over, driving the development of new neighborhoods, and once the residential units are in, then the supermarkets come, the doctors’ offices,” Claussen said. “What we’ve been experiencing here in Charleston during the past
10 years is nothing short of exceptional growth, and frankly, we don’t see it stopping.”
Asked what he thinks is driving the growth, Claussen said, “the way of life and the climate.
“I deal with customers on a daily basis, many who actually run their businesses off their laptop computers,” he continued. “Now, the reality is, when you do that, you can be anywhere, be it Kalamazoo, Mich., or Charleston, S.C., but they prefer Charleston.”
Like SCB&T’s move into Charleston, the move into Daniel Island was driven by the exuberance of the local economy, Hill said.
“It’s just one of those areas that’s booming with growth, and we wanted to be there to finance homes,” he said.
Dan McCue is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dmccue@
charlestonbusiness.com.
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