Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Bell-ringing caps off big year for Meridian
Stock is now traded on Nasdaq as it continues plans for growth, including opening a branch in Philadelphia this week
“The goal is to continue to build the bank. Size means something in banking.” – Meridian Chairman and CEO Chris Annas
EAST WHITELAND » Executives with Meridian Bank capped what has been a busy year by ringing the closing bell at the Nasdaq exchange in New York City.
The ceremony marked the company’s recent listing on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol MRBK.
“We are thrilled to be a part of the prestigious Nasdaq community of innovative and visionary companies,” Meridian Chairman and CEO Chris Annas said at the event on Dec. 1. “With the ringing of this closing bell, we celebrate a tremendous milestone in the evolution of our company, and the start of a new chapter of growth and expansion in our region.”
Meridian, started in 2004 in Daylesford, now has five branches – Doylestown, Blue Bell, West Chester, Paoli and Media – and plans to open a sixth in Philadelphia on Tuesday.
It also has 14 mortgage offices from Margate, N.J. to the Lehigh Valley and from Harrisburg to Delaware.
It did $900 million in mortgages last year, Annas said.
In another major move for the bank this year, it purchased HJ Wealth Management LLC of Plymouth Meeting in April, bringing Meridian Wealth Partners’ total assets under management to around $700 million.
“The goal is to continue to build the bank,” Annas said in a phone conversation last week. “Size means something in banking.”
To that end, in November Meridian offered of 2.7 million shares of its common stock at $17 a share (on Friday, the stock closed at $19.69 a share). With the $46 million the bank raised, it spent about $13 million to repurchase preferred stock and will use the rest to grow and meet the capital requirements so it can make more loans.
“There’s great demand, we know, in Chester, Montgomery and Delaware counties,” Annas said.
Meridian’s specialties include commercial and consumer real estate financing, residential mortgages, electronic payments processing, and investment and wealth management services.
It has 300 employees – 175 in the mortgage offices and 125 in the banks, Annas said.
With Congress near to passing a new tax law and an already healthy economy, Annas expects the business climate to remain “sunny.”
“We want to help them reinvest and expand their businesses,” he said. “We are the grease that makes all that happen.”
Annas said Meridian was able to survive the Great Recession of 2008 to 2012 intact because it stayed focused on its core principles.
“The loyalty factor ... We really stuck with our customers, some of our success now is do to that,” he said.
Annas said he was excited to “ring the bell” at the Nasdaq exchange. There were 24 people from Meridian at the event, which involves pushing a button to bring a close to trading for the day.
“I’ve always wanted to ring the bell because it means you’re big enough and successful enough” to be listed on the same exchange as successful companies like Amazon and Microsoft,” said Annas. “It was thrilling. You come out onto the street and see your faces there four stories high (on a jumbo screen). It’s a new chapter in Meridian’s history and I think it means a lot for the whole Delaware Valley.”