Milton Jones the man and civic leader never left Atlanta. Milton Jones the banker, though, has been on the sidelines for a couple years.
Now Jones, who headed Bank of America’s Georgia operations from its namesake Midtown tower, is back in business here again.
Jones’ new company, CertusBank, last week bought two failed Georgia banks with operations scattered across the state.
“When we sat down and strategized what we wanted to do, these are the markets we knew,” said Jones, whose career has shifted from regional point man for the nation’s biggest bank to leading man in the clean up of two of Georgia’s nation-leading 63 failures.
Jones, 58, was one the city’s top black business leaders while with BofA, and he also led the civic group 100 Black Men of Atlanta. His 30-month tenure as chairman of the board ended earlier this year, though he is still a director.
Jones has teamed with other ex-BofA and Wachovia executives in CertusBank, where they are part of a small fraternity of bankers whose business, at least to start, is buying up failing institutions and stitching them into a working bank.
Friday’s failed banks — Macon-based Atlantic Southern Bank and Franklin-based First Georgia Banking Co. — gave CertusBank 25 Georgia branches and about $1.5 billion in assets here, instantly making the bank a Top 15 institution in the state.
That boosts CertusBank's holdings to 32 total branches in three states, including ones in Carrollton, Bremen and Athens. The plan is to create a franchise focused on Georgia, the Carolinas and north Florida.
“We’re building to stay, to operate as a lasting company,” said Jones, CertusBank’s chairman, president and CEO.
State Bank & Trust and Community & Southern Bank are similar Georgia startup institutions that have carved a niche by buying failed banks with assistance from the FDIC.
CertusBank started with Jones, former BofA executive Charlie Williams and Walter Davis, a former credit and mortgage guru at Wachovia, forming an investment fund to buy up failed banks last year. It made its first purchase in January, a small failed bank in Easley, S.C., where CertusBank is now headquartered.
Usually, established banks buy failed ones. But in Georgia's stretch of failures since 2008, groups set up specifically for the purpose have bought about a quarter of the state’s closed banks.
Government-assisted deals, though complicated, are lucrative for buyers because of substantial government guarantees on loan losses.
Like most failed banks, Atlantic Southern and First Georgia had bet too heavily on real estate. CertusBank will focus on small business and corporate banking, areas traditionally more stable than real estate.
Chris Marinac, bank analyst with FIG Partners in Atlanta, said CertusBank will have an enormous project integrating its Georgia and South Carolina banks into one system while planning for future growth.
“They’ve got plenty to say grace over for the next six months,” he said.
CertusBank likely will look for other acquisition targets, particularly in metro Atlanta, Marinac said.
Though the bank’s operational headquarters is in South Carolina, Jones said the bank’s parent company will be based in Atlanta. Jones said his bank will focus on client service more than immediate growth.
Jones, whose mother spent her career in the Atlanta Public Schools and whose father was with Lockheed Martin, still lives in the city and remains on many civic boards including the Georgia Research Alliance.
“I can be seen jogging on Peachtree everyday,” he said.
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