About a decade ago, PNC, the national bank headquartered in Pittsburgh, announced its goal of expanding into the 30 largest metro areas in the U.S.
Chris Sherman, a regional president with PNC and its head of corporate banking in San Antonio, helped oversee transfer of the Alamo City’s BBVA branches to the PNC brand. Notably, his bank’s logo has replaced that of BBVA atop the Weston Centre, one of downtown’s tallest skyscrapers, where the bank has its local offices.
“So I was actually PNC employee number one on the ground here,” he said. “Things got really exciting really fast. You know, PNC announced the acquisition of BBVA then we were kind of off to the races, if you will.”Sherman — who was born in Massachusetts and spent much of his childhood in North Carolina — recently sat for an interview to discuss the acquisition, the trend of consolidation in the banking industry, and the era of low interest rates. The following has been edited and condensed.
No, but that’s the job I quickly pivoted to. You know, PNC had set a strategy about 10 years ago of expanding into the top 30 MSAs in the country. It was really doing so, kind of two to three a year, opening a corporate and middle-market banking office in any of those markets, building out a presence then coming behind that with retail, commercial banking, private banking and the rest of our services. So PNC had announced that they were going to do that in Austin and San Antonio.