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County Gets 1st Whitney Bank Branch

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By TED JACKOVICS

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 18, 2008

TAMPA - Whitney Bank will open its first Hillsborough County location in August across from Tampa's International Plaza.

The bank has 17 locations in Pinellas, Pasco, Manatee and Sarasota counties and concentrates on serving mid-sized companies.

The bank's 125-year-old New Orleans-based parent, Whitney Holding Corp., operates more than 150 locations in Louisiana, Florida, Texas, Alabama and Mississippi with more than $10 billion in assets.

The assets of the Bay area branches total about $1 billion, said Eric Obeck, a former Barnett Bank Inc. executive vice president and senior corporate banker who will become Whitney's Tampa president.

"Whitney is a commercial-industrial bank, and Tampa is the hub of the commercial region," Obeck said in explaining the rationale for the Hillsborough County expansion. "We will be looking at additional locations in the county."
Obeck said the bank's ideal client is the middle market commercial company with $50 million to $150 million in annual sales, including international banking. Whitney also offers investment and trust services, private banking for affluent clients and has a staff that focuses on international banking.

"Even in these trying times, we are moving into markets when other banks are focusing internally on their issues," Obeck said.

Since sinking its New Orleans roots in the late 1800s, Whitney has specialized in shipping and commerce, so Tampa, with the Port of Tampa, is a natural location for it, he said.

"We're probably one of the only larger regional banks that has a business line in shipping," he said.

Whitney acquired Signature Financial Holdings Inc. of St. Petersburg, with $278 million in assets in 2007; Madison BancShares Inc. in Palm Harbor, with assets of $218 million in 2004; and First National Bancshares Inc. in Bradenton in 2006, with $380 million in assets.

"This move will significantly leverage Whitney's previous acquisitions of three community banks ... over the past three years and strengthen its position in the region," Whitney Bank Holding President John M. Turner Jr. said in a prepared statement.

Whitney initially will employ fewer than a dozen people in the Tampa office at the One Metro Center complex at 4010 Boy Scout Road.

For two years, Whitney Bank has sponsored the Whitney Bank Club at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, where fans attending Rays games can buy a ticket for admission to the upscale restaurant along the first-base line.

Whitney frequently entertains clients there, but the club is open to the public.

Reporter Ted Jackovics can be reached at tjackovics@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7817.

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