Investors earn handsomely

After a decade in management roles at Morgan Stanley, including stints in New York and London, Trevor Burgess sought to get into community banking in 2008, somewhere in Florida.

The timing, with the economy in tatters, seemed off the mark. But Burgess and a business partner, Brazilian investor Marcello Lima, plowed ahead. The pair combed through a list of community banks in Florida that had assets between $100 million and $500 million. They ultimately invested more than $15 million in Lakewood Ranch-based Community Bank of Manatee. In 2009, Community Bank, then 14 years old, was one of many community banks in need of a major capital infusion.

The investment in Community Bank, since renamed C1 Bank, has paid off in a big way of for Burgess, Lima and other key investors. Little Rock, Ark.-based Bank of the Ozarks, in one
of the largest recent bank acquisitions in Florida, bought C1 for $402.5 million, or $25 per share. The deal closed July 21.