Lexington, KY - Huntington National Bank, third in the United States and No. 1 in the region for small business loans, is opening a six-officer wealth management and small business loan office at 710 East Main Street in downtown Lexington. The office, slated to open around the first of the year, will be the first permanent office for the group led by former Lexington PNC banker Tom Poskin, Huntington vice president and wealth advisors regional manager.
The group that will consist of six officers and support staff has been operational in temporary offices since February and currently counts Poskin, senior banking officer; private banker Scott McCauley; senior trust administrator Barry Cooper; and SBA lender Chris Jackson as its staff.
"We have been here and we have just been kind of getting our footprint started here and established. We've now got everything to where we're structured up to where we can really do business," Poskin said.
The Columbus, Ohio-based Huntington has a history of more than 140 years in banking and more than 600 retail branches in six states, including Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Northern Kentucky.
According to Huntington spokesmen Brent Wilder, the bank's headquarters, adjacent to Capitol Square in Downtown Columbus, is just a few feet from the bank's original location, which still serves as a branch.
"The growth in Huntington is in what I would call the pebbles-in-the-pond approach," Poskin said. "They grow in the concentric circles that move out from the center. They're in a six-state area, they are doing banking business in Northern Kentucky, and this was the natural extension of their footprint."
As to whether or not this is a just an initial venture into the Lexington market, Wilder said, "We don't have any further plans for the market at this time."
According to Poskin, Huntington chose to come into the Lexington market with the wealth management office because of an increase in business with people from Lexington being done elsewhere.
"They were doing more and more business in Lexington through their offices in Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati, and it made sense for them to take an advance," Poskin said.
In addition to a strong focus on small business loans, Poskin said Huntington is also the state's largest auto lender.
According to an October release from Huntington, the bank made 2,785 SBA 7(a) loans for a total of $422.9 million during the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2011. That's a 112 percent increase in number of loans and a 98 percent increase in dollar amount over 2010. Those numbers made Huntington the top SBA lender in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and West Virginia in both number of loans and total loan amount.
In Kentucky during that same time, the bank made 74 loans for $13.6 million, making them No. 2 in number of loans and No. 3 in dollar amount in the state.