Bank goes for focus over quick expansion

First Federal Bank of Florida, one of the newest community banking entries in the Sarasota-Bradenton market, recently passed up two opportunities to get bigger when it declined invitations to bid on struggling local banks.

In talking about those opportunities with the Business Review, the bank's top executive, Keith Leibfried, also partially revealed one of the local banking community's worst-kept secrets: Another bank failure, possibly two, could be imminent in the Sarasota-Bradenton market.

Those banks are the ones First Federal didn't bid on. Leibfried declined to elaborate or name the banks, citing Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. privacy regulations.

The list of potential candidates, of course, is deep. At least four banks in the local market have flirted with Tier 1 risk-based capital ratios under 6% over the last year — a ratio on the cusp of regulatory danger.

One bank, Englewood-based Peninsula, held a Tier 1 risk-based capital ratio of -1.83% as of March 31, according to FDIC data. Plus, the top executive Peninsula hired in October to turn the bank around, Tony Leo, resigned June 17 to take a leadership position at another community bank in Clearwater.

Leibfried, in Sarasota June 18 for a First Federal grand-opening event, says the timing wasn't right for the Lake City-based bank to bid on any local banks when regulators approached bank executives in mid-June. The bank took over the failed remains of Flagship National Bank from the FDIC Oct. 23, a transaction that included four branches in Sarasota and Manatee counties, $175 million in deposits and a loss-share agreement with regulators on $130 million in assets.

Then, on May 7, First Federal closed on an FDIC-led deal to take over the assets and deposits of the Bank of Bonifay, which had 15 branches in the Florida Panhandle and near Jacksonville.

“These acquisitions are pretty demanding on my management staff,” says Leibfried. “It's a lot of stress.”

First Federal, with $839 million in assets as of March 31, will instead focus on building its brand in Greater Sarasota — no easy task in the fragmented banking community.

“We are used to being the premier bank in the community we serve,” says Leibfried, who has been First Federal's chairman, CEO and president since 1980. “So our big challenge will be to let people know we are for real.”