Florida bank sees ‘significant opportunity’ to grow in crowded Charlotte market
BankUnited Inc. makes its Charlotte debut as part of the Florida bank’s Southeast expansion.
Three corporate banking and commercial real estate executives based in Charlotte will focus on regional growth. The move comes after the bank’s expansion into Atlanta, Dallas, Texas, and Morristown, New Jersey.
“Charlotte represents a significant opportunity for BankUnited to continue to grow,” BankUnited Chief Operating Officer Thomas Cornish said in a news release last week.
BankUnited is eyeing office space in the SouthPark area. “We expect to finalize this over the next couple of months,” Cornish said in a statement Tuesday to The Charlotte Observer.
“We will evaluate the opportunity for branches in the future,” he said. “In the short term, we are focused on launching the office to serve larger potential clients in the commercial and commercial real estate segments.”
Charlotte and North Carolina are appealing because of their growth and diversified industries that involve the bank’s target clients, Cornish said.
Charlotte is the second-largest banking center in the U.S. Its three dominant banks are Bank of America and Truist, both headquartered in Charlotte, and San Francisco-based Wells Fargo, which has 27,000 workers here.
Several other banks have announced Charlotte expansions, including the largest U.S. bank, JPMorgan Chase, Ohio-based banks Huntington National Bank and Fifth Third Bank, Pittsburgh-based PNC Bank and Texas-based USAA.
Citigroup Technology, a division of the investment bank and financial services firm Citigroup, also said this month it will invest $16 million and hire 510 more workers by 2027 in Charlotte.
BankUnited hires in Charlotte
BankUnited’s three Charlotte executives are:
▪ Robert Hoak, senior vice president of corporate banking producing team leader. Hoak has 17 years of commercial banking experience. He most recently served as senior vice president of Woodforest National Bank in Charlotte.
▪ R. Bryan Moore, senior vice president of commercial real estate relationship manager. Moore has sourced, funded and managed more than $2 billion in commercial real estate loans over the past 15 years.
▪ Brand Hosford, vice president of senior credit products officer serving commercial and industrial clients. Hosford has 24 years of experience, most recently as senior portfolio manager for the commercial banking division of Woodforest National Bank in Charlotte.
BankUnited is a national bank and one of the largest independent depository institutions. It is headquartered in Miami Lakes, Florida. BankUnited’s total assets were nearly $35 billion as of March 31.
BankUnited is ranked 56th in the U.S. by asset share, according to the Federal Reserve. That’s compared to Bank of America — the second largest U.S. bank — with $3.3 trillion in total assets, Wells Fargo has nearly $2 trillion and Truist has $544 billion.
