John Allison

This merger accelerates our long-term earnings growth potential by expanding our Tennessee market. It will allow us to extend our read more

This merger accelerates our long-term earnings growth potential by expanding our Tennessee market. It will allow us to extend our growing Knoxville-based presence toward Chattanooga and on to our existing north Georgia franchise.

Boy, I feel bad, ... There's so much I want to show you.

Boy, I feel bad, ... There's so much I want to show you.

A lot of it is the seat-of-your-pants-type thing and a lot of faith and trust in people.

A lot of it is the seat-of-your-pants-type thing and a lot of faith and trust in people.

BB&T over the years largely has grown through the merger-and- acquisition process, acquiring community banks and thrifts, and that's been read more

BB&T over the years largely has grown through the merger-and- acquisition process, acquiring community banks and thrifts, and that's been successful on our part. Over the last year we've had a little of this indigestion from a lot of mergers over a short period. We needed to take a little breather to refocus on organic revenue growth, and we think we're near that period of time where our internal operations are where we want, so we're looking at getting back into the (M&A) business.

We grew up competing with much larger institutions. They are very good at what they do and we knew that read more

We grew up competing with much larger institutions. They are very good at what they do and we knew that we couldn't beat them at their game.