A paragraph Pinnacle doesn’t want associated with its earnings

By Geert De Lombaerde Posted on October 19, 2009 at 1:47 pm

Southeast powerhouse BB&T today reported earnings that beat estimates, but Tiernan Ray at Barron’s says there are plenty of clouds still in the sky.

What’s troubling is that the company’s core business of writing new loans continues to slip even as its portfolio of existing loans deteriorates further. Fees on plain old deposits are just about the only thing to smile at, and even that is small comfort.

We’ll see tomorrow afternoon what comforts Pinnacle CEO Terry Turner has for his shareholders. Analysts expect the bank to post a loss of 9 cents per share.

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Tags: banking, BB&T Corp., earnings reports, loan losses, M. Terry Turner, Pinnacle Financial Partners Inc.  

So just how bad will things get for Nashville’s banks?

By Geert De Lombaerde Posted on July 23, 2009 at 6:47 am

Wednesday’s Pinnacle Financial earnings conference call ended on a chilling note when Stephens Inc. analyst Matt Olney asked CEO Terry Turner to compare his bank’s bad-loan levels with those of competitors in Nashville.

“My belief is that our credit quality is better,” Turner said. “Other operators in this market have been taking significant losses over an extended period of time… We’re later getting to the table.”

That’s pretty strong stuff when you consider that Pinnacle’s nonperforming asset ratio ballooned to 3.3 percent in the first half and is quite a bit higher than most Nashville-area banks’. (Generally, bankers start to get nervous when their NPAs approach 2 percent. For the parent of GreenBank, the number now stands at almost 5 percent.)

But if Turner’s right, it means many of his Middle Tennessee peers — who were much more aggressive than Pinnacle in pursuing land development deals during the boom — still aren’t owning up to many of their credit problems.

And Turner isn’t upbeat about the region’s real estate sector. Asked what he’s hearing from the trenches, he was blunt.

“In the case of real estate, the sentiment would be awful. You wouldn’t find any optimism among builders, among developers, among folks that loan to them,” he said. “There’s some activity, but you couldn’t translate that into optimism.”

Banks around the country that relied on lending to homebuilders are now gasping for air. And, while we don’t really want to admit it, parts of Greater Nashville look a good bit like parts of Greater Atlanta, where a fistful of banks have gone under this year. Given a little more time, why should our situation be all that different?

Without getting too dramatic, it’s time to start preparing for the first Middle Tennessee bank failure of this crisis. One Friday afternoon soon, the friendly folks at the FDIC will unveil their first Tennessee intervention, adding to a 2009 list that now stands at 57.

And oh, by the way, in case you had the thought: Don’t look for Pinnacle to be a buyer when that happens. Turner on Wednesday told analysts his team is “not particularly interested in FDIC workouts.” That’s not terrible surprising, since he also said most of his crew’s current credit quality troubles stem from the acquisitions of Cavalry Banking and Mid-America Bancshares.

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Tags: bank capital, banking, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., financial regulation, loan losses, M. Terry Turner, Matt Olney, Pinnacle Financial Partners Inc., Stephens Inc.  

Turner: Pinnacle ‘above-average’ TARP payback candidate

By Geert De Lombaerde Posted on June 16, 2009 at 12:52 pm

Talking to Bloomberg News, Pinnacle Financial CEO Terry Turner says his company will look to soon rid itself of the scarlet letter that TARP has become.

Banks that keep TARP funds will be viewed as troubled because they will face more onerous regulations and be unable to hire highly paid executives because of government limits on compensation, Turner said.

“The risks are significant as Congress, the Treasury and regulators continue to roll out more constraints,” Turner said.

Shares of Pinnacle (Ticker: PNFP) are bucking the overall market today, trading up almost 2 percent.

UPDATE 6 p.m.: Pinnacle has wrapped up its stock offering.

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Tags: bank capital, banking, financial regulation, M. Terry Turner, Pinnacle Financial Partners Inc., stock offerings, TARP, Troubled Assets Relief Program  

Turner: Home prices will fall another 10%

By Geert De Lombaerde Posted on June 5, 2009 at 12:33 am

Speaking at a Stephens Inc. investment conference earlier this week, Pinnacle Financial CEO Terry Turner offered a quick take on the Nashville-area economy, saying its Achilles heel continues to be the housing market.

“I don’t think we’ve found a bottom on the median home price. It’s probably going to be off another 10 percent this year.”

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Tags: banking, economic indicators, housing market, M. Terry Turner, Pinnacle Financial Partners Inc., residential real estate, Stephens Inc.