Mr. Murphy: Southwest Bank of Texas was founded in Houston, Texas in 1990. Walter Johnson, who had been CEO of Allied Bank of Texas for 18 years, started us on our major expansion and growth. He began recruiting a team of bankers who have built Southwest Bank of Texas, the largest independent bank in Houston. I joined the bank in early 1990. When Walter joined the bank we were about 50 million in assets. We had about 25 employees, one location. In this 11-year period we have grown to 4 billion in assets, 32 branches, and we are now the largest independent bank in Houston.
TWST: Would you like to give us some idea of the specific things that
you did to achieve such success?
Mr. Murphy: I believe that the strategy that we've deployed over these
years has served us very well. It's been a strategy of focus on
customers' needs. We've done a combination of things to anticipate our
customers' needs and to provide what I think is the best of both worlds:
the people, products and services of a big bank ' and the very
competitive pricing that you would expect to find at a larger
organization ' and the flexibility and ease of doing business that you
would find with a much smaller company. Ours is a bank where you really
can get to know your banker and you can develop a trust, a long-term
relationship.
Tickers included in this excerpt: SWBT
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