Who Owns Truist Bank?

Truist Bank is an American national bank headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was formed in 2019 after BB&T and SunTrust merged. Truist offers consumer and commercial banking, securities brokerage, asset management, and mortgage. As of Dec 2023, Truist was a top-10 US commercial bank with $535 billion in assets. [1]

Truist Bank is a US-only financial institution with a strong market presence in the Southeast. The bank has over 2,000 branches and 3,000 ATMs nationwide. In July 2022, the company launched Truist One Banking to offer new bank accounts with no overdraft fees.

Customers can open the Truist Confidence Account and Truist One Checking. In Jan 2024, Truist Bank introduced a $400 bonus to attract new clients. Customers can earn this reward by opening a Truist checking account between Jan and Jun 2024. [2]

Truist adopted and started implementing its $750-million cost-cutting initiative in Sep 2023. The company plans to consolidate banking regions, merge consumer and wholesale payments businesses, and unify commercial real estate ventures.

As of Dec 2023, Truist had 2,006 branches across 17 states. In Jan 2024, the company announced its plan to close 72 branches by Mar 2024. The move will reduce Truist’s branch network by nearly 4%. [3]

Truist Bank is focused on increasing its profit margins. The bank seeks to streamline its workforce, resize its board of directors, and expand its management team. In Q4 2023, the company laid off 1,038 employees as part of planned staff reductions. The move will help the bank focus its resources on activities that drive long-term growth and profitability. [4]

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Who is Truist Bank’s Parent Company?

Truist Bank is a wholly owned subsidiary of Truist Financial Corporation, an American bank holding company based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The parent company was formed in Dec 2019 when SunTrust Banks merged with Branch Banking and Trust Company (BB&T).

In 2020, Truist Financial unveiled its logo that combines the blue of SunTrust and the burgundy of BB&T. As of Dec 2023, the bank holding company had 50,832 employees. Its workforce decreased by 4,294, or 7.79%, from Dec 2022. [5]

Truist Financial Corp is a public company trading on the NYSE under the TFC symbol. The parent company is reorganizing its leadership structure to improve Truist Bank’s lagging financial performance and efficiency. By Nov 2023, Truist Financial had nearly doubled its executive management team. The company reworked its 11-member leadership team into a 21-person operating council to help break down silos. [6]

Truist Financial managed banking and insurance brokerage businesses. The holding firm has been streamlining its organizational structure since 2020. In Feb 2024, the company agreed to sell the remaining stake in Truist Insurance Holdings to an investor group for $15.5 billion. This move came a year after the firm sold 20% of the insurance brokerage business to Stone Point Capital for $1.95 billion. The sale allows Truist to strengthen its core banking business and improve its relative capital profile. [7]

Truist Bank’s Ownership History

Truist Bank was formed in 2019 after the BB&T-SunTrust merger created Truist Financial Corp. However, the bank traces its origins to the 1800s. Alpheus Branch and Thomas Jefferson Hadley founded the Branch and Hadley Merchant Bank in 1872.

After several name changes, the bank became BB&T. The Georgia General Assembly granted the Commercial Travelers’ Savings Bank a charter in 1891. This bank later became SunTrust’s predecessor, Trust Company of Georgia.

BB&T entered the insurance business in 1922 and grew to become America’s sixth-largest broker. Sun Banks and Trust Company of Georgia merged in 1984 to form SunTrust. BB&T and SunTrust operated separately until Feb 2019, when their boards unanimously approved combining the banks in a merger of equals.

In Jun 2019, BB&T and SunTrust agreed to adopt the name Truist for the merged company and announced new corporate headquarters. They announced a $60 billion Truist Community Benefits Plan a month later. [8]

The BB&T-SunTrust merger was completed in Dec 2019. The deal created Truist Financial Corp (TFC), Truist Bank’s holding firm. In 2020, the company launched Truist Ventures, Truist Foundation, and Truist Securities. Truist Financial invested in technology and moved its banking products to one digital cloud platform. [9]

Truist went on a shopping spree after its founding. The bank acquired Service Finance Co. for $2 billion in Aug 2021 to strengthen its point-of-sale financing business. In May 2022, Truist bought Long Game and integrated it into Truist Foundry to develop new offerings in emerging product categories.

The bank purchased Zaloni Arena in Aug 2022 to accelerate its data governance, metadata management, AI, and advanced analytics programs. [10]

Truist Bank’s Shareholder Structure

Truist Bank is managed by its financial holding firm, Truist Financial Corporation, a public company. As of Dec 2023, Truist Financial offered 1,334,590,912 Stock A shares with one vote and 223,000 Stock B shares. Truist’s Stock A includes 1,329,675,107 free-float shares. [11]

Truist Financial Corp’s shareholder structure includes institutions, insiders, and individual investors. In Dec 2023, Vanguard Group, Inc. was Truist’s largest shareholder, with 8.84%. This figure represents 117,952,471 shares. Blackrock was Truist’s second-largest shareholder with 7.3%, followed by State Street Corp at 4.67%, Dodge & Cox at 3.98%, Bank of America at 1.94%, Amundi at 1.93%, and Geode Capital at 1.92%. Other top players include Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, and Charles Schwab. [12]

Truist’s shareholder structure includes several insiders, including directors and officers. As of Feb 2024, CEO Bill Rogers was Truist’s top insider shareholder, with 1,168,710 shares. Rogers was SunTrust Banks CEO and became CEO of Truist Financial Corporation in Sep 2021 as part of the merger deal.

COO Hugh Cummins is second with 378,164 shares, followed by Corporate Officer Clarke Starnes at 231,447 and CFO Michael Maguire at 80,968. Other top insider shareholders include Donta Wilson, Christine Sears, David Boyer, Patrick Graney, Bruce Tanner, and Cynthia Powell. [13]

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