Capital Battle

REVIEW SUMMARY
Industry. Banking
Trend. Mergers and acquisitions
Key. Investors are scouting the Gulf Coast for bank acquisitions.

At a Christmas party in 2006, Gary Tice, Garrett Richter, C.C. Coghill and Robert Reichert got together to reminisce about the blockbuster bank deal they had made a year earlier.

The quartet sold Naples-based First National Bank of Florida at the peak of the market in 2005 to Fifth Third Bank for nearly $1.6 billion, or an astounding 5.75 times tangible book value. They had started the bank with just $7.5 million in 1989 and turned it into a $5.5 billion franchise with 77 branches from Tampa to Orlando, Sarasota, Fort Myers and Naples.