Marking continued expansion, 30-year veteran will spearhead Mid-Atlantic operations
Continuing to build upon the company's recent momentum, Performance Trust this week announced the hire of Gary Penrose to head up the Investment Banking Group's Mid-Atlantic operations. He was brought on February 2 as a managing director.
Penrose, who brings more than 30 years of community investment banking experience to Performance Trust, will provide existing and prospective clients with a wealth of knowledge in financial advisory services including mergers and acquisitions, capital raising, strategic planning, fixed income, asset/liability management and more. His principal focus will be in Virginia and surrounding states, with an added focus in Michigan.
This hire marks the fourth significant Performance Trust expansion in the last three years, with new community bank-focused investment bankers expanding operations into the Southeast earlier this year, the Pacific Northwest and Midwest in 2014, and Texas in 2012.
Penrose said the company's culture and wide-ranging expertise - particularly its focus on improving clients' margins and bottom lines through its educational, fixed-income and asset/liability advisory business - drew him to Performance Trust. "I have a lot of community bank clients," Penrose said, "and they're not all going to do mergers, they're not all going to raise capital, they're not all going to need strategic planning services. But what they all could use help with, even the most profitable ones, is improving their profitability potential and bottom line."
"Performance Trust is widely respected in the financial services industry, and because it's a high-integrity company which aims to build trusting relationships with its clients, it's a great fit for me and a perfect opportunity to better serve my clients while continuing to offer the trust and integrity they expect and deserve," he said. "Performance Trust is very relationship-oriented - they're always looking to do the right thing for their clients and put their needs first."
Penrose comes to Performance Trust from Davenport & Company, where since 2007 he managed the company's Financial Institutions Group. Prior to his time with Davenport, he was head of Financial Institutions Investment Banking at Ryan Beck - now known as Stifel Nicolaus - and managing director of Scott & Stringfellow's - now known as BB&T Capital Markets. He started his career at Bank of Virginia, where he was a member of the Mergers and Acquisitions/Planning Department.
Penrose received his MBA from the College of William & Mary and his Bachelor of Science degree from Eastern Michigan University. He is a frequent speaker to various banking groups, banking trade associations, and bank regulatory agencies across the country and former instructor for SNL Financial's Fundamentals of Bank Valuation.
