Olaf Growald
Ronny Korb, the charter president for Pinnacle Bank, Texas, is just as comfortable doing business with people wearing suits and neckties as he is if they’re in blue jeans and driving F-150s. That’s the nature of the customers Pinnacle Bank’s 240 employees serve through 22 Texas branches, which range from Keene in Johnson County to downtown Fort Worth. Earlier this spring, Pinnacle led the $83 million financing for the sale of the Burnett Plaza office building downtown. Korb has worked for Pinnacle in Keene, Mountain Valley, Burleson, Azle, and Fort Worth. He’s based at Pinnacle Bank Place in downtown Fort Worth, which opened with 8,500 square feet late in 2017.
Turning point: The bank, with a sister institution and two partner banks, financed the Burnett Plaza deal. “You’ve got this big brother to help you do what you need to do, yet we have this ‘community’ feel. We can help a $1,000 loan customer or a $32 million [the bank’s Texas lending limit] customer. We can partner with other banks. We can do layer deals.”
Growth in Pinnacle’s Region 3, which includes Fort Worth: Thirty-two percent growth in deposits in the last year from payroll protection program deposits; 18% loan growth, driven by commercial.
Pinnacle’s market niches: The bank has $1.9 billion in Texas assets and grew 16.46% last year. It did $170 million in federal payroll protection program loans in rounds one and two. Its biggest loan niches are in commercial, new home construction for builders, lots in residential developments, spec home construction, medical office, and home mortgages. In commercial, “asset quality today in banks is as strong as it’s ever been. [With] all the liquidity that’s in the market, everybody has money to do what they need to do.” On the home mortgage side, “there are so many people moving to Texas,” and with mortgage rates remaining below 3%, “today is a really good time to do a mortgage loan.”
Impact of COVID-19 on commercial real estate: “The jury is still out.” On the office side, “maybe everybody’s going to use the space they have, and there’s not going to be an issue. That’s what we hope for.”