Today is my travel day back from Phoenix. It’s an all-day affair as it’s almost impossible to get a direct flight heading west or back to Southwest Florida this time of year.
Flying out to Arizona, I had to connect in Columbus, Ohio, and today, I will spend several hours of quality time in the St. Louis airport.
I’ve had a fantastic few days immersed in detailed discussions about one of my absolute favorite topics.
I can talk about bank mergers and acquisitions (M&A) all day, and this conference is one of the few places you can do just that with over 1,300 bankers, investment bankers, and service providers in attendance.
Banks have seen a steady wave of consolidation for 35 years when the Reagan administration eliminated interstate banking restrictions in 1985.
Before the restrictions were lifted, there were over 18,000 banks in the United States.
Today we’re down to just about 5,300.
You may read that and think you’re too late to join in, but that number is probably going to go below 2,000 before the wave finally breaks and the environment stabilizes.
We will see between three to five percent of the banks in the country get taken over every year until that happens.
It’s one of the market’s most powerful and profitable trends. It has served myself, my clients, and my readers extremely well over my more than three decades in the business, and it’s still going strong.
