Look in the phone book under Black Mountain Community Bank and you’ll find one listing, one address. Unlike many banks in Southern Nevada, the Henderson bank doesn’t have branches on every business corner. But that doesn’t stop it from competing with larger financial institutions.
“We probably have most, if not all of the business products that a Bank of America or a Wells Fargo would have: cash management, on-line banking and most of those things you need to be competitive,” said Peter Atkinson, president of Black Mountain Community Bank.
Black Mountain’s strength is due in large part to the $3.4 billion holding company, Capitol Bancorp, that backs it. The Michigan-based, publicly traded holding company maintains control of 32 individual banks throughout the United States. “Because we have 32 other banks to share the costs, we have all the necessary products to compete with the larger banks for small-business accounts,” Atkinson said.
Black Mountain Community Bank opened in March 2000. Atkinson, who spent 44 years as a commercial real estate lender, was working at Pioneer Bank when it was sold to another financial institution. He decided to leave his position to lead Black Mountain, located at 1700 West Horizon Ridge Parkway in Henderson.
“We didn’t have a single loan on the books, but I had 137 investors I knew I could go after to be my core customers to start with, and that’s exactly what we did,” Atkinson said. He put an executive team in place to help operate the bank. Under the agreement with Capitol Bancorp, Capitol funded 51 percent of the bank and maintains control. Atkinson, in turn, sought out investors to fund the remaining 49 percent of the capital.
“That was interesting,” Atkinson said of finding investors. “I’ve been loaning money for 44 years, but I never had to ask anybody for money.”
Those who invested with Atkinson were rewarded. They almost tripled their money in five years, and the bank is now excelling in the Las Vegas Valley market. It has assets of $107 million and deposits of $85 million, and it offers loans from $125,000 to $5 million. It offers traditional banking services to the individual customer, and the bank has also developed its business strategy to concentrate on small- to medium-sized business accounts. Much of its business is in commercial lending.
Atkinson said the challenges in opening Black Mountain were minimal because of the resources Capitol Bancorp provided. “Essentially, we had unlimited capital because of the holding company,” he said. “We have a legal department that handled the charter and the regulatory issues. We had a human resources department that handled getting us our HR manual and all the proper forms and job descriptions.”
Black Mountain has a staff of 17, and Atkinson said their combined banking experience totals almost 400 years. In addition to Black Mountain, Capitol Bancorp has three other affiliated banks located in Southern Nevada: Desert Community Bank, Red Rock Community Bank and Bank of Las Vegas. Capitol Bancorp has plans to charter and open 10 new banks in five states in the next year, including one in North Las Vegas.
Atkinson said although Black Mountain offers many of the same services and products its larger counterparts do, it prides itself on being a small community bank.
“Sometimes it’s like a family in here with some of our customers who come in,” Atkinson said. “They know everybody.”
“My door’s always open,” he added. “But you can only do that until you get so big, and then you can’t do it any more. That’s why we don’t grow these banks very large. We just open new ones.”