Sam L. Susser, Chairman & CEO, Susser Bank

In an interview with Invest:, Sam L. Susser, chairman and CEO of Susser Bank, talked about the advantages that being a family-owned bank offers in terms of long-term planning and an entrepreneurial approach to banking. He also discussed the sectors that the bank is targeting and the impact of banking consolidation on the availability of financial talent in North Texas.

What competitive advantages does being a family-owned bank provide Susser Bank?

I have spent over 30 years as an entrepreneur. I started in the late 1980s when the Texas economy collapsed. Back then, I was working in New York in investment banking, and our family businesses had failed, as had our banks. By relentlessly raising capital for 28 years, we grew from five stores to a $6.7 billion publicly traded, Fortune 500 enterprise with 12,000 employees. Thanks to that experience, what Susser Bank brings is direct knowledge of what businesses really need from their bank.

We are entrepreneurs first, so we know what it is like when banks re-trade a deal, change the terms, or pull out of a commitment at the last minute. We aim to bring a client-centered approach to banking, and we are successfully imprinting that entrepreneurial DNA into a banking franchise that will serve Texas for many generations.

What is the rationale behind Susser Bank’s diversification strategy in the Texas economy?

We have the goal of building a diversified bank. Many banks are highly profitable thanks to a tremendous focus on one or two areas. That is a terrific business strategy in the short term, but it is hard to make it work across many generations. Susser Bank is active in almost every facet of the Texas economy, especially in the major metro areas. The one area where we are not active yet is oil and gas upstream lending. We do not have the size and scale to do that appropriately to serve larger energy companies in the way that they need to be served. As our bank grows and strengthens, that is an area that we would like to enter. 

We have a strong technology group led by a senior banker based in Central Texas who is building an amazing portfolio of companies that are primarily in software. Technology is the mainstay of new business formation in Texas, so we have focused on building those muscles because technology and healthcare will be the cornerstones of this economy in 20 to 30 years. We need to start mastering those sectors and figuring out the best way to serve clients in those spaces.

What innovations and technologies is Susser Bank implementing to achieve efficiencies and improve its services?

When I ran a Fortune 500 enterprise, I dealt with the nation’s largest banks, so I saw the power of their technology platform for large businesses. There are many businesses in Texas that are small or midsized today but that will grow to become large-sized businesses by leveraging the momentum in Texas. Therefore, one of the first things we did when we were Affiliated Bank was rip out the software and technology and ask our leadership team to request proposals for the best-in-class, most scalable software solutions available in the banking sector.

We have been implementing these platforms like crazy over the past six years. The mandate was not to find the cheapest software, but the technology of the best companies that we would want to work with 20 years from now. We thought it would be easier to make these investments and changes while the bank was still small, so the basic big switches have been implemented. We have a tremendous treasury management platform that is easy to use and powerful. We also have easy to use features and a client-care culture that exceed much larger banks. Those technologies and our client service are the cornerstones of our uniqueness and the driver of tremendous growth that our leadership teams produce. There are two kinds of banks: those that invest in expensive technology and better people to prepare for the future and those that are for sale. Banks that are not making those investments because they are big, expensive, and hard to implement will not be able to survive in this rapidly changing world. 

How do you expect the Federal Reserve’s cutting interest rates to affect the broader North Texas business environment?

The decline in rates that we anticipate for the next year-and-a-half will be a real shot in the arm for DFW more than for other markets. There are thousands of people living elsewhere in the United States who want to move to Texas and to DFW. Nevertheless, they have been locked in with 3% or 4% mortgages in California, New York, or Illinois.

Many of those people cannot afford an 8% mortgage. As rates come down, there will be tens of thousands of families with pent-up demand to relocate to Texas for a pro-business climate that will benefit from a lower-rate environment. Assuming interest rates fall and mortgage rates return to a more normal level of 5-6.5%, that will unleash the beast. We will see even more people relocating to Texas, and to North Texas in particular.

What strategies is Susser Bank implementing to retain and attract talent in North Texas?

We love the DFW because there is so much finance talent. One of the things that attracts our family to the banking business is the long-term trend of banks being merged out or sold out, both in Texas and in the United States. The pressures for banks to consolidate are greater than ever due to increased regulatory pressure and bigger technology requirements. There are a handful of banks that have been sold or have announced their sale in the last few months in North Texas, which is putting hundreds of talented finance professionals back on the market. That talent is looking for careers with stable banks that have a long-term plan and make investments in technology. Since there are so many banks headquartered in DFW, our family-led bank with a 100-year plan is ready to grab talent.

We are big believers in aligning the interest of our team members with our shareholders. In only six years of operation, more than half of our commercial banking employees now have equity in the company thanks to performance awards. We aim to build a bank that is run as a partnership. Every senior person in our organization can earn meaningful equity. That creates great alignment as employees must be here for a long time to earn it. 

How is Susser Bank working to promote and advance financial literacy?

We do a lot of training. We have partnered with great institutions to do training for young people and low-income people to help them learn how to manage their finances, since it is hard to make ends meet. For instance, we recently established a significant partnership with Jewish Family Services. That organization is building a giant food bank and provides healthcare needs for those least able to afford it. We look forward to bringing financial literacy training to their clients in the years ahead.

What are the outlook and top priorities of Susser Bank for the next two to three years?

Our top priorities are to continually enhance our new technology and to get connected with as many growing businesses as possible so we can take the banking pain points out of their life. Thanks to our big investment in technology, we can make business easier for clients. We aim to remove the burrs under the saddle that people have in their financial life. We are so grateful for having tons of liquidity, so we are wide open for business. We have the capital to lend, the right technology and a great team, so we are eager to help individuals, professionals, and entrepreneurs invest back in Texas and grow the economy.