BusinessTN

As community banks continue to crop up across Tennessee, organizers of SmartBank in Sevier County are hoping to cut into the local market share by taking advantage of the area’s bread-and-butter tourism sprawl.

Led by a father and son team, Bill Carroll and Billy Carroll are local, seasoned banking veterans whose name is as famous for deposits and lending as the name Ogle is to real estate. (The Ogle family originally owned much of the county’s land and are involved in a hearty helping of retail and commercial development.)

“The community banks here have the lion’s share of the [loan] market,” says Billy Carroll, SmartBank’s president and CEO. “Large regionals are not big fans of tourism and lodging markets.”

It’s obvious to the Carrolls, who started SmartBank in organization in November 2005, that there is enough potential to justify another bank to compete with regional counterparts BB&T and SunTrust and Citizens National Bank, the institution that the elder Carroll built from $1.25 million in capital in 1973 to $500 million in assets last year.

Son Billy was reared in banking under his father’s tutelage and wasn’t afraid to pull his father out of retirement to start up SmartBank. The ultimate goal is raising $20 million in capital, a feat Billy equates to politicking, working the room at as many events as possible. “I feel like I’m running for office,” he says.

Local financiers have jumped on board, including Ted Miller with Dolly Parton Productions and, not surprisingly, David Ogle of Five Oaks Development.

The Carrolls started selling bank stocks in May and hope to open its first two branches by early 2007 in Sevierville and Pigeon Forge. Despite decades of experience, SmartBank took some of its cues from community banking phenom Pinnacle National Bank. Despite starting in 2000, a rather inopportune time to begin any business, the Nashville-based, de novo organization led by former AmSouth veteran Terry Turner has earned $1.8 billion in assets in six years.

What’s Turner’s secret? Pinnacle only hires experienced brokers and lures them from the regional banks. “Our thrust is on the commercial and affluent consumer. We foster deep personal relationships between the bank and our clients,” Turner says. Sevier County’s banking talent pool isn’t as large as Nashville’s, but SmartBank may hire those from the strong Carroll following at Citizens National. Now, that’s smart.