FB Financial Corp - Annual Report: 2017 (Form 10-K)

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

(Mark One)

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2017

OR

Commission File Number 001-37875

FB FINANCIAL CORPORATION

(Exact name of Registrant as specified in its Charter)

Registrant’s telephone number, including area code: (615) 564-1212

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act: Common Stock, Par Value $1.00 Per Share; Common stock traded on the New York Stock Exchange

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None

Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. YES ☐ NO ☒

Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Act. YES ☐ NO ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant: (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the Registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. YES ☒ NO ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the Registrant was required to submit and post such files). YES ☒ NO ☐

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K (§229.405 of this chapter) is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of Registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). YES ☐ NO ☒

As of June 30, 2017, the last business day of the Registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter, the aggregate market value of the Registrant’s common stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant was $417.6 million, based on the closing sales price of $36.19 per share as reported on the New York Stock Exchange.

The number of shares of Registrant’s Common Stock outstanding as of March 12, 2018 was 30,650,758.

Portions of the Registrant’s Definitive Proxy Statement relating to the Annual Meeting of Shareholders, scheduled to be held on May 17, 2018, are incorporated by reference into Part III of this Report.

Table of Contents

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In this Annual Report on Form 10-K (this “Annual Report”), references to “we,” “our,” “us,” “FB Financial” or “the Company” refer to FB Financial Corporation, a Tennessee corporation, and our wholly-owned banking subsidiary, FirstBank, a Tennessee state chartered bank, unless otherwise indicated or the context otherwise requires. References to “Bank” or “FirstBank” refer to FirstBank, our wholly-owned banking subsidiary.

Cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements

Certain statements contained in this Annual Report are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). These forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements relating to our business, cash flows, condition (financial or otherwise), credit quality, financial performance, liquidity, long-term performance goals, prospects, results of operations, strategic initiatives and the timing, benefits, costs and synergies of future acquisition, disposition and other growth opportunities. These statements, which are based on certain assumptions and estimates and describe our future plans, results, strategies and expectations, can generally be identified by the use of the words and phrases “may,” “will,” “should,” “could,” “would,” “goal,” “plan,” “potential,” “estimate,” “project,” “believe,” “intend,” “anticipate,” “expect,” “target,” “aim,” “predict,” “continue,” “seek,” “projection” and other variations of such words and phrases and similar expressions.

These forward-looking statements are not historical facts, and are based upon current expectations, estimates and projections about our industry, management’s beliefs and certain assumptions made by management, many of which, by their nature, are inherently uncertain and beyond our control. The inclusion of these forward-looking statements should not be regarded as a representation by us or any other person that such expectations, estimates and projections will be achieved. Accordingly, we caution you that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks, assumptions and uncertainties that are difficult to predict and that are beyond our control. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable as of the date of this Annual Report, actual results may prove to be materially different from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. There are or will be important factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those indicated in these forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the following:

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The foregoing factors should not be construed as exhaustive and should be read in conjunction with the sections entitled “Risk factors” and “Management’s discussion and analysis of financial condition and results of operations” included in this Annual Report.  If one or more events related to these or other risks or uncertainties materialize, or if our underlying assumptions prove to be incorrect, actual results may differ materially from our forward-looking statements. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date of this Annual Report, and we do not undertake any obligation to publicly update or review any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise, except as required by law.  New risks and uncertainties may emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for us to predict their occurrence or how they will affect us.

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PART I

ITEM - 1. Business

Overview

FB Financial Corporation is a bank holding company, headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. Our wholly-owned bank subsidiary, FirstBank, is the third largest Tennessee-headquartered bank, based on total assets. FirstBank provides a comprehensive suite of commercial and consumer banking services to clients in select markets primarily in Tennessee, North Alabama and North Georgia. Our footprint includes 56 full-service bank branches and 9 other banking locations serving the metropolitan markets of Nashville, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Memphis, Jackson and Huntsville (AL) in addition to 12 community markets. FirstBank also provides mortgage banking services utilizing its bank branch network and mortgage banking offices strategically located throughout the southeastern United States in addition to its national internet delivery channel. As of December 31, 2017, we had total assets of $4.73 billion, loans held for investment of $3.17 billion, total deposits of $3.66 billion, and total shareholders’ equity of $596.7 million.

Throughout our history, we have steadfastly maintained a community banking approach of personalized relationship-based service. As we have grown, maintaining this relationship-based approach utilizing local, talented and experienced bankers in each market has been an integral component of our success. Our bankers utilize their local knowledge and relationships to deliver timely solutions to our clients. We empower these bankers by giving them local decision making authority supplemented by appropriate risk oversight. In our experience, business owners and operators prefer to deal with decision makers, and our banking model is built to place the decision maker as close to the client as possible. We have designed our operations, technology, and centralized risk oversight processes to specifically support our operating model. We deploy this operating model universally in each of our markets, regardless of size. We believe we have a competitive advantage in our markets versus both smaller community banks and larger regional and national banks. Our robust offering of products, services and capabilities differentiate us from community banks and our significant local market knowledge, client service level and the speed with which we are able to make decisions and deliver our services to customers differentiate us from larger regional and national banks.

We seek to leverage our operating model by focusing on profitable growth opportunities across our footprint, focused primarily on both high-growth metropolitan markets and stable and growing community markets. As a result, we are able to strategically deploy our capital across our markets to take advantage of those opportunities that we believe provide the greatest certainty of profitable growth and the highest returns.

Our operating model is executed by a talented management team lead by our Chief Executive Officer, Christopher T. Holmes. Mr. Holmes, a 26-year banking veteran originally from Lexington, Tennessee, joined the Bank in 2010 as Chief Banking Officer and was elected Chief Executive Officer in 2013. Mr. Holmes has an extensive background in both metropolitan and community banking gained from his time at community banks and larger public financial institutions. Mr. Holmes has assembled a highly effective management team, blending members that have a long history with FirstBank and members that have significant banking experience at other in-market banks.

Our history

Originally chartered in 1906, we are one of the longest continually operating banks in Tennessee. While our deep community roots go back over 100 years, our growth trajectory changed in 1984 when Tennessee businessman James W. Ayers, our Executive Chairman and controlling shareholder, acquired Farmers State Bank with an associate. In 1988, we purchased the assets of First National Bank of Lexington, Tennessee and changed our name to FirstBank, forming the foundation of our current franchise. In 1990, Mr. Ayers became our sole shareholder and remained our sole shareholder until our initial public offering in September 2016. Under Mr. Ayers’ ownership, we grew from a community bank with only $14 million in assets in 1984 to the third largest bank headquartered in Tennessee, based on total assets.

From 1984 to 2001, we operated as a community bank growing organically and through small acquisitions in community markets in West Tennessee. In 2001, our strategy evolved from serving purely community markets to include a modest presence in metropolitan markets, expanding our reach and enhancing our growth. We entered Nashville and Memphis in 2001 by opening a branch in each of those markets. In 2004 and 2008, we opened our first branches in Knoxville and Chattanooga, respectively. Although we experienced some growth in each metropolitan market, it did not become a major strategic focus until we implemented our current metropolitan growth strategy in the Nashville metropolitan statistical area (“MSA”) in 2012. Additionally, we expanded into the Huntsville, Alabama MSA in 2014 by opening a branch in Huntsville and loan production office in Florence, Alabama. The successful implementation of this strategy has resulted in 155% deposit growth in the Nashville MSA from June 30, 2012 to June 30, 2017, making it our largest market with 29% of our loans held for investment and 23% of our total deposits, as of December 31, 2017. As a result of this evolution and recent acquisitions discussed above, we now operate a balanced business model that serves a diverse customer base in both metropolitan and community markets.

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Recent acquisitions

On September 18, 2015, we completed the acquisition of Northwest Georgia Bank (“NWGB”), a 110-year old institution with six branches, serving clients in the Chattanooga MSA. We acquired net assets with a fair value of $272 million which included a bargain purchase gain of $2.8 million, loans with a fair value of $79 million and deposits with a fair value of $246 million. This acquisition accelerated our already planned expansion in Chattanooga by significantly augmenting our client base, increasing our brand awareness and providing us with the scale to attract leading bankers to further enhance our market penetration and profitable growth.

On July 31, 2017, the Bank completed its merger with Clayton Bank and Trust (“CBT”) and American City Bank (“ACB” and together with CBT, the “Clayton Banks”), pursuant to the Stock Purchase Agreement with Clayton HC, Inc., a Tennessee corporation (“Seller”), and James L. Clayton, the majority shareholder of Seller, dated February 8, 2017, as amended on May 26, 2017, with a purchase price of approximately $236.5 million. The Company issued 1,521,200 shares of common stock and paid cash of $184.2 million to purchase all of the outstanding shares of the Clayton Banks. At closing, the Clayton Banks merged with and into FirstBank, with FirstBank continuing as the surviving banking entity. As of July 31, 2017, the estimated fair value of loans acquired and deposits assumed as a result of the merger was $1,059.7 million and $979.5 million, respectively.

See Note 2, “Mergers and acquisitions” in the Notes to the consolidated financial statements for additional details regarding these transactions.

Our markets

Our market footprint is the southeastern United States, centered around Tennessee, and includes portions of North Alabama and North Georgia.

Note: Financial data as of December 31, 2017.  Market data as of June 30, 2017. Size of bubble represents size of company deposits in a given market

Source: Company data and S&P Global Market Intelligence; Branch numbers adjusted for branch closures since June 30, 2017; ¹ Statistics based on county data.

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Our core client profile across our footprint includes small businesses, corporate clients, commercial real estate owners and consumers. We target business clients with substantial operating history that have annual revenues of up to $250 million. Our typical business client would keep business deposit accounts with us, and we would look to provide banking services to the owners and employees of the business as well. We also have an active consumer lending business that includes deposit products, mortgages, home equity lines and small consumer finance loans. We continuously strive to build deeper relationships by actively cross-selling incremental products to meet the banking needs of our clients.

The following tables show our deposit market share ranking among all banks and community banks (which we define as banks with less than $25 billion in assets) in Tennessee as of June 30, 2017 (the most recent date where such information is publicly available). Of the 10 largest banks in the state based on total deposits, 6 are national or regional banks, which we believe provides us with significant opportunities to gain market share from these banks.

Top 10 Banks in Tennessee:

Top 10 banks under $25bn assets in Tennessee:

Source: SNL Financial and Company reports as of June 30, 2017; total assets as of December 31, 2017, adjusted for acquisitions as of March 7, 2018.

Our six metropolitan markets.

We currently operate in the six metropolitan markets listed below.

Nashville is the largest MSA in Tennessee, our largest market and one of the fastest growing cities in the U.S. Nashville has experienced 14.7% population growth from 2010 to 2018, and its population is expected to grow by an additional 6.9% by 2023 according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Memphis is the 2^nd largest MSA in Tennessee. It has a diversified business base and the busiest cargo airport in North America. Memphis is headquarters to three Fortune 500 companies, AutoZone, International Paper and FedEx, which together employs over 30,000 people in Memphis.

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Knoxville is the 3^rd largest MSA in Tennessee. It is home to the University of Tennessee system’s flagship campus, and employs over 30,000 healthcare professionals. Our recent acquisition of the Clayton Banks has helped strengthen our presence in the attractive Knoxville MSA.

Chattanooga is the 4^th largest MSA in Tennessee. It has a diverse economy with over 20,000 businesses that employ over 260,000 people and generate an estimated $45 billion in annual sales. Chattanooga has experienced population growth of 5.5% between 2010 and 2018 and is expected to experience 4% population growth by 2023 according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Jackson is the 6^th largest MSA in Tennessee and is the 2^nd largest city in West Tennessee following Memphis. Jackson has developed into a leading industrial and distribution center in the state of Tennessee, with particular strength in manufacturing.

Huntsville is the 2^nd largest MSA in Alabama and has one of the strongest technology and engineering economies in the nation, with the highest concentration of engineers in the nation and the 6^th largest county by military spending in the country.

Our community markets.

We are a leading bank in many of the Tennessee community markets that we serve. These community markets continue to offer us opportunities to profitably grow our market share. The table below shows our presence, as of June 30, 2017, in the six community markets where we have the largest amount of deposits. In total, we have over $1.2 billion in deposits in our community markets.

Top FirstBank community markets

Note: Market data sourced from S&P Global Market Intelligence as of June 30, 2017. Statistics based on county data.

Market characteristics and mix.

Metropolitan markets.     Our metropolitan markets are characterized by attractive demographics and strong economies and offer substantial opportunity for future growth. We compete in these markets with national and regional banks that currently have the largest market share positions and with community banks primarily focused only on a particular geographic area or business niche. We believe we are well positioned to grow our market penetration among our target clients of small to medium sized businesses and the consumer base working and living in these metropolitan markets. In our experience, such clients demand the product sophistication of a larger bank, but prefer the customer service, relationship focus and local connectivity of a community bank. We believe that our size, product suite and operating model offer us a competitive advantage in these markets versus our smaller competitors, many of which are focused only on specific counties or industries. Our operating model driven by local talent with strong community ties and local authority serves as a key competitive advantage over our larger competitors. We believe that, as a result, we are well positioned to leverage our existing franchise to expand our market share in our metropolitan markets.

Community markets.    Our community markets tend to be more stable throughout various economic cycles, with primarily retail and small business customer opportunities and more limited competition. We believe this leads to an attractive profitability profile and smaller ticket, more granular loan and deposit portfolios. Our community markets are standalone markets and not suburbs of larger markets. We primarily compete in these markets with community banks that have less than $1 billion in total assets. Our strategy is to compete against these smaller community banks by providing a broader and more sophisticated set of products and capabilities while still maintaining our local service model. We believe these markets are being deemphasized by national and regional banks which provides us with opportunities to hire talented bankers in these communities and gain market share in these community markets.

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Market mix.    The charts below show our branch, loan and deposit mix between our metropolitan and community markets as of December 31, 2017.

Our competitive strengths

We believe the following strengths provide us with competitive advantages over other banks in our markets and provide us with the necessary foundation to successfully execute our growth strategies.

Depth and experience of senior management team.    We have a deep and experienced senior management team led by our chief executive officer, Christopher Holmes, and chief financial officer, James Gordon. The team, as evidenced by the leaders of our Banking and Mortgage Segments, combines long histories at FirstBank with significant market and industry knowledge gained from employment with other successful banks.

In addition to our senior management team, our market leaders have an average tenure of more than 11 years with us. We believe that we also have depth in our overall management in lending, credit administration, finance, operations and information technology.

Strong growth coupled with profitability.    We have delivered attractive growth and returns since the implementation of our strategic plan designed to leverage our competitive advantages in both metropolitan and community markets in 2012. Our execution of the plan has delivered strong growth, primarily from our Nashville metropolitan strategy and mortgage expansion, coupled with positive returns from our legacy community markets.

Ability to recruit and retain talented people.    The success of our operating model, which depends on local knowledge and decision making, is directly related to our ability to attract and retain talented bankers in each of our markets. We strive to attract and retain these bankers by fostering an entrepreneurial environment, empowering them with local authority and providing them with sufficient infrastructure and resources to support their growth while also providing management with appropriate oversight. We believe that our family culture built around respect, teamwork and empowerment makes us attractive for talented bankers and associates across our geographic footprint. We pride ourselves on being a great place to work, which is evidenced by our recognition as a Top Workplace for 2017 by The Tennessean, Nashville’s principal newspaper. In the Nashville market alone, we have added 22 new bankers since 2012, including the current President of our Middle and East Tennessee region, Allen Oakley, a 35-year banking veteran.

Scalable, decentralized operating model.    We operate each of our markets as individual markets, with an experienced market leader in charge of each market. Each of our market leaders and bankers is empowered to make local decisions up to specified limits approved by the Bank’s board of directors and our senior management team based on experience and track record. We believe that the delivery by our bankers of in-market client decisions, coupled with strong, centralized risk and credit support, allows us to best serve our clients. This operating model has been proven successful in our existing markets, and we believe it is highly replicable and scalable. We have a robust infrastructure bolstered by our conversion to a new core processing system in the second quarter of 2016 that can support our model as we grow in existing and new markets either organically or through opportunistic acquisitions.  

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Disciplined and deliberate risk management.    Risk management is a cornerstone of our culture and is emphasized throughout every area of the organization. Our decentralized operating model is balanced by individual lending authorities based on demonstrated experience and expertise. Larger credit decisions involve credit officers and/or senior management. We have invested in technology to monitor compliance of credits with our policies. We strive for a balanced loan portfolio taking into consideration borrower and industry concentrations. Our risk management strategy also includes rigorous systems and processes to monitor liquidity, interest rate, operations and compliance risk.

Proven acquirer.    We have a strong record of adding value through acquisitions and have completed nine bank and three mortgage related acquisitions under our current ownership. Our key operational associates have integration experience with FirstBank and other institutions. We are a disciplined acquirer focused on opportunities that meet our internal return targets, maintain or enhance our earnings per share and add to our strong core deposit franchise. Our long-term personal relationships with many of the bank owners and CEOs in our markets lead to a natural dialogue when they choose to explore a sale of their company. Additionally, we believe that our size and ability to operate effectively in both community and metropolitan markets make us an attractive option to smaller banks seeking an acquirer.

Our business strategy

Our overall business strategy is comprised of the following core strategies.

Enhance market penetration in metropolitan markets.    In recent years, we have successfully grown our franchise in the Nashville MSA by executing our metropolitan growth strategy. The strategy is centered on the following: recruiting the best bankers and empowering them with local authority; developing branch density; building brand awareness and growing our business and consumer banking presence; and expanding our product offering and capabilities. These strategies coupled with our personalized, relationship-based client service have contributed significantly to our success. Additionally, we believe that our scale, resources and sophisticated range of products provides us with a competitive advantage over the smaller community banks in the Nashville MSA and our other MSAs. As a result of these competitive advantages and growth strategies, the Nashville MSA has become our largest market. With approximately a 1.9% market share, based on deposits as of June 30, 2017, we are still in the early stage of executing our Nashville growth strategy and intend to continue to efficiently increase our market penetration.  

Based on market and competitive similarities, we believe our growth strategies are transferable to our other metropolitan markets. We implemented these strategies with an initial focus on the Chattanooga MSA. Our acquisition of Northwest Georgia Bank has accelerated our growth and profitability in Chattanooga and, our acquisition of the Clayton Banks has begun to show the same results on a larger scale in the Knoxville MSA.

Pursue opportunistic acquisitions.    While most of our growth has been organic, we have completed nine acquisitions under our current ownership, including our recent acquisition of the Clayton Banks. We pursue acquisition opportunities that meet our internal return targets, maintain or enhance our earnings per share, enhance market penetration, and possess strong core deposits. We believe that numerous small to mid-sized banks or branch networks will be available for acquisition in metropolitan and community markets throughout Tennessee as well as in attractive contiguous markets in the coming years due to industry trends, such as scale and operational challenges, regulatory pressure, management succession issues and shareholder liquidity needs. In Tennessee alone, there are approximately 130 banks with total assets of less than $1 billion, and in the contiguous states of Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, there are over 500 banks under $1 billion in assets. We believe that we are positioned as a natural consolidator because of our financial strength, reputation and operating model.

Improve efficiency by leveraging technology and consolidating operations.    We have invested significantly in our bankers, infrastructure and technology in recent years, including our conversion to a new core processing system in the second quarter of 2016, which we believe has created a scalable platform that will support future growth across all of our markets. Our bankers and branches, especially in the Nashville MSA, continue to scale in size, and we believe there is capacity to grow our business without adding significantly to our branch network. We plan to continue to invest, as needed, in our technology and business infrastructure to support our future growth and increase operating efficiencies. We intend to leverage these investments to consolidate and centralize our operations and support functions while protecting our decentralized client service model.

Seize opportunities to expand noninterest income.    While our primary focus is on capturing opportunities in our core banking business, we have successfully seized opportunities to grow our noninterest income by providing our people with the flexibility to take advantage of market opportunities. As part of our strategic focus to grow our noninterest income, we have significantly expanded our mortgage business by hiring experienced loan officers, implementing our Consumer Direct internet delivery channel in 2014 along with expanding our third party origination business via our correspondent channel in 2016. This has allowed us to continue offering our mortgage clients the personalized attention that is the

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cornerstone of our Bank. We have also successfully expanded our fee-based businesses to include more robust treasury management, trust and investment services. We intend to continue emphasizing these business lines, which we believe will serve as strong customer acquisition channels and provide us with a range of cross-selling opportunities, while making our business stronger and more profitable.

Products and Services

We operate our business in two business segments: Banking and Mortgage. See Note 21, “Segment Reporting,” in the notes to our consolidated financial statements for a description of these business segments.

Banking services

While we operate through two segments, Banking and Mortgage, Banking has been, and is, the cornerstone of our operations and underlying philosophy since our beginnings in 1906. As the third largest Tennessee headquartered bank, we are dedicated to serving the banking needs of businesses, professionals and individuals in our metropolitan and community markets through our community banking approach of personalized, relationship-based service. We strive to become trusted advisers to our clients and achieve long-term relationships. We deliver a wide range of banking products and services tailored to meet the needs of our clients across our footprint.

Lending activities

Through the Bank, we offer a broad range of lending products to our targeted clients, which includes businesses with up to $250 million in annual revenues, business owners, real estate investors and consumers. Our commercial lending products include working capital lines of credit, equipment loans, owner-occupied and non-owner-occupied real estate construction loans, “mini-perm” real estate term loans, and cash flow loans to a diversified mix of clients, including small and medium sized businesses. Our consumer lending products include first and second residential mortgage loans, home equity lines of credit and consumer installment loans to purchase cars, boats and other recreational vehicles. At December 31, 2017, we had loans held for investment of $3.17 billion. Throughout the following discussion of our banking services, we present our loan information as loans excluding loans held for sale.

Lending strategy

Our strategy is to grow our loan portfolio by originating commercial and consumer loans that produce revenues consistent with our financial objectives. Through our operating model and strategies, we seek to be the leading provider of lending products and services in our market areas to our clients. We market our lending products and services to our clients through our personalized service. As a general practice, we originate substantially all of our loans, but we occasionally participate in syndications, limiting participations to loans originated by lead banks with which we have a close relationship and which share our credit philosophies.

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We also actively pursue and maintain a balanced loan portfolio by type, size and location. Our loans are generally secured and supported by personal guarantees.

Loan portfolio mix as of December 31, 2017

Commercial and industrial loans.    Our commercial and industrial loans are typically made to small- and medium-sized manufacturing, wholesale, retail and service businesses for working capital and operational needs and business expansions, including the purchase of capital equipment. Commercial and industrial loans generally include lines of credit and loans with maturities of five years or less. Because we are a community bank with long standing ties to the businesses and professionals operating in our market areas, we are able to tailor our commercial and industrial loan programs to meet the needs of our clients. We target high-quality businesses in our markets with a proven track record and up to $250 million in annual revenues. As of December 31, 2017, we had outstanding commercial and industrial loans, of $715.1 million, or 23% of our loan portfolio. Growing our commercial and industrial loan portfolio is an important area of emphasis for us, and we intend to continue to grow this portfolio.

Commercial and industrial loans are generally made with operating cash flows as the primary source of repayment, but may also include collateralization by inventory, accounts receivable, equipment and personal guarantees. As a result, the repayment risk is subject to the ongoing business operations of the borrower. Any interruption or discontinuance of operating cash flows from the business, which may be influenced by events not under the control of the borrower such as economic events and changes in governmental regulations, could materially affect the ability of the borrower to repay the loan. Further, commercial and industrial loans may be secured by the collateral described above, which if the business is unsuccessful, typically have values insufficient to satisfy the loan without a loss.

Commercial real estate loans.    Our commercial real estate loans consist of both owner-occupied and non-owner occupied commercial real estate loans. The total amount of commercial real estate loans outstanding as of December 31, 2017 was $1,047.5 million, or 33% of our loan portfolio. The real estate securing our existing commercial real estate loans includes a wide variety of property types, such as offices, warehouses, production facilities, health care facilities, hotels, mixed-use residential/commercial, retail centers, restaurants, churches, assisted living facilities and agricultural based facilities. As of December 31, 2017, $495.9 million of our commercial real estate loan portfolio, or 16% of our loan portfolio, was owner-occupied commercial real estate loans, and $551.6 million of our commercial real estate loan portfolio, or 17% of our loan portfolio, was non-owner occupied commercial real estate loans. We are primarily focused on growing the owner-occupied portion of our commercial real estate loan portfolio.

With respect to our owner-occupied commercial real estate loans, we target local companies with a proven operating history that tend to be business-operators and professionals within our markets. Owner-occupied real estate loans are typically repaid through the ongoing business operations of the borrower, and hence are dependent on the success of the underlying business for repayment and are more exposed to general economic conditions.

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With respect to our non-owner occupied commercial real estate loans, we target experienced, local real estate developers and investors with whom our bankers have long-standing relationships. Our non-owner occupied commercial real estate loans also tend to involve retail, hotel, office, warehouse, industrial, healthcare, assisted living and mix-used properties. Non-owner occupied real estate loans are typically repaid with the funds received from the sale of the completed property or rental proceeds from such property, and are therefore more sensitive to adverse conditions in the real estate market, which can also be affected by general economic conditions.

Commercial real estate loans are often larger and involve greater risks than other types of lending. Adverse developments affecting commercial real estate values in our market areas could increase the credit risk associated with these loans, impair the value of property pledged as collateral for these loans, and affect our ability to sell the collateral upon foreclosure without a loss. Furthermore, adverse developments affecting the business operations of the borrowers of our owner-occupied commercial real estate loans could significantly increase the credit risk associated with these loans. Due to the larger average size of commercial real estate loans, we face the risk that losses incurred on a small number of commercial real estate loans could have a material adverse impact on our financial condition and results of operations.

Residential real estate loans.    Our residential real estate loans consist of 1-4 family loans, home equity loans and multi-family loans. The residential real estate loans described below exclude mortgage loans that are held for sale. As of December 31, 2017, the total amount of residential real estate loans outstanding was $738.3 million, or 23% of our loan portfolio.

Our 1-4 family mortgage loans are primarily made with respect to and secured by single family homes, which are both owner-occupied and investor owned. We seek to make our 1-4 family mortgage loans to well-qualified homeowners and investors with a proven track record that satisfy our credit and underwriting standards. As of December 31, 2017, our 1-4 family mortgage loans comprised $481.0 million, or 15%, of loans.

Our home equity loans are primarily revolving, open-end lines of credit secured by 1-4 family residential properties. We seek to make our home equity loans to well-qualified borrowers that satisfy our credit and underwriting standards. Our home equity loans as of December 31, 2017 comprised $195.0 million, or 6%, of loans.

Our multi-family residential loans are primarily secured by multi-family properties, primarily apartment and condominium buildings. We seek to make multi-family residential loans to experienced real estate investors with a proven track record. These loans are primarily repaid from the rental payments generated by the multifamily properties. Our multifamily loans as of December 31, 2017 comprised $62.4 million, or 2% of loans.

We expect to continue to make residential real estate mortgage loans at a similar pace so long as housing values in our markets do not deteriorate from current prevailing levels and we are able to make such loans consistent with our current credit and underwriting standards. Like our commercial real estate loans, our residential real estate loans are secured by real estate, the value of which may fluctuate significantly over a short period of time as a result of market conditions in the area in which the real estate is located. Adverse developments affecting real estate values in our market areas could therefore increase the credit risk associated with these loans, impair the value of property pledged as collateral on loans and affect our ability to sell the collateral upon foreclosure without a loss or additional losses. We primarily make our residential real estate loans to qualified individuals and investors in accordance with our real estate lending policies, which detail maximum loan to value ratios and maturities and, as a result, the repayment of these loans are also affected by adverse personal circumstances.

Construction loans.    Our construction real estate loans include commercial construction, land acquisition and land development loans and single-family interim construction loans to small- and medium-sized businesses and individuals. We target experienced local developers primarily focused on multifamily, hospitality, commercial building, retail and warehouse developments. These loans typically are disbursed as construction progresses and carry variable interest rates for commercial loans and fixed rates for consumer loans. As of December 31, 2017, the outstanding balance of our construction loans was $448.3 million, or 14% of our loan portfolio. We expect to continue to make construction loans at a similar pace so long as demand continues and the market for and values of such properties remain stable or continue to improve in our markets.

Construction loans carry a high risk because repayment of these loans is dependent, in part, on the success of the ultimate project or, to a lesser extent, the ability of the borrower to refinance the loan or sell the property upon completion of the project, rather than the ability of the borrower or guarantor to repay principal and interest. Moreover, these loans are typically based on future estimates of value and economic circumstances, which may differ from actual results or be affected by unforeseen events. If the actual circumstances differ from the estimates made at the time of approval of these loans, we face the risk of having inadequate security for the repayment of the loan. Further, these loans are typically secured by the underlying development and, even if we foreclose on the loan, we may be required to fund additional

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amounts to complete the project and may have to hold the property for an unspecified period of time while we attempt to dispose of it.

Consumer and other loans.    We offer a variety of consumer loans, such as installment loans to individuals for personal, family and household purposes, including car, boat and other recreational vehicle loans and personal lines of credit. Our consumer loans typically are part of an overall client relationship designed to support the individual consumer borrowing needs of our commercial loan and deposit clients, and are well diversified across our markets. As of December 31, 2017, we had outstanding $217.7 million of consumer and other loans, excluding residential real estate loans, representing 7% of our loan portfolio. Consumer loans typically have shorter terms, lower balances, higher yields and higher risks of default than residential real estate mortgage loans. The repayment of consumer loans is dependent on the borrower’s continuing financial stability and are therefore more likely to be affected by adverse personal circumstances, such as the loss of employment, unexpected medical costs or divorce. These loans are often secured by the underlying personal property, which typically has insufficient value to satisfy the loan without a loss due to damage to the collateral and general depreciation.

Deposits and other banking services

We offer a full range of transaction and interest bearing depository products and services to meet the demands of each segment within our client base. Our target segments include consumer, small business, and corporate entities. We solicit deposits from these target segments through our local bankers, sophisticated product offering and our brand-awareness initiatives, such as our community focused marketing and high-visibility branch locations. We offer demand, negotiable order of withdrawal, money market, certificates of deposit, municipal and savings accounts. To complement our account offerings, we also have in place technology to support electronic banking activities, including consumer online banking and mobile banking. In addition to these electronic banking activities, we make deposit services accessible to our clients by offering direct deposit, wire transfer, night depository, banking-by-mail and remote capture for non-cash items. Our commercial clients are served by a well-developed cash management technology platform.

The following charts show our deposit composition as of December 31, 2017, as well as the growth of our noninterest bearing deposits as a percentage of total deposits and the resulting improvement in our cost of deposits since 2013.

The growth of low-cost deposits is an important aspect of our strategic plan, and we believe it is a significant driver of our value. The primary driver of our noninterest bearing deposit growth has been our ability to acquire new commercial clients. This has resulted from the addition of relationship bankers in our Nashville market, improved technology in the cash management area, and the addition of experienced cash management sales and operational specialists. Our cash management product offering includes a well-developed online banking platform complimented by a host of ancillary services including lockbox remittance processing, remote check deposit capture, remote cash capture, fraud protection services, armored car services, commercial and business card products, and merchant processing solutions.

Our consumer offering is anchored on our rewards based checking product where we currently hold over $260 million in deposit balances in approximately 33,000 accounts. The “FirstRewards” checking product incents our clients to use their FirstBank debit card as a primary method of payment at point of sale, utilize online and mobile banking, electronic bill pay, direct deposit, and receive electronic statements. When meeting certain criteria, clients receive a premium interest rate on

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balances. The Bank benefits from higher interchange revenue, lower expense on a per account basis as compared to traditional products, and better client retention.

The coupling of these strategies delivered through our relationship-based sales model has allowed us to grow noninterest bearing deposits and noninterest income without expanding our account level fee structure. This differentiating approach has set us apart from national and regional competitors and has built loyalty and satisfaction within our client segments.

Mortgage banking services

We offer full-service residential mortgage products and services through our bank branches, our mortgage offices strategically located throughout the southeastern United States both in and outside our community banking footprint and our internet delivery channel. We also offer smaller community banks and mortgage companies a host of diverse, third-party mortgage services. Our mortgage business has a strong track record of profitability and growth driven by our experienced mortgage executive team, diversified distribution channels and correspondent relationships with other community banks and mortgage companies.

While we have always offered, and continue to offer, home mortgage loans to retail customers through our bank branches, we began the expansion and diversification of our mortgage business beyond our traditional bank branch channel in 2010 by opening loan production offices in certain Tennessee markets in an effort to take advantage of attractive opportunities to grow our mortgage revenues and attract new customers to the Bank. We continued this expansion in 2011 with the acquisition of the assets and certain employees of Henger Rast Mortgage, with loan production offices in Alabama and Georgia, and the acquisition of our third party origination group in Greer, South Carolina. We also opened additional mortgage offices outside of our community banking footprint in strategically located markets across the Southeast and continued to hire experienced loan officers across our footprint. In 2014, we started our internet delivery channel to target clients across the nation and to compete against online mortgage providers. Additionally, in 2016 we acquired certain assets of Finance of America Mortgage LLC, further expanding our third party origination channel. As a result of these initiatives, we have expanded our mortgage banking business beyond the traditional home mortgage loans offered by our bank branches and now offer our residential mortgage products and services and third party mortgage services through four diverse delivery channels: (1) Retail Mortgage, which provides residential mortgages to consumers in the Southeast primarily through our bank branches and mortgage offices; (2) Third Party Origination consisting of both correspondent and wholesale lending, which provides mortgage processing and resale services to smaller banks and mortgage companies in Tennessee and other states nationally; (3) ConsumerDirect, which provides residential mortgages on a national basis via internet channels; and (4) Reverse Mortgage, which provides reverse mortgage products to clients in Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and other states nationally.

The residential mortgage products and services originated in our community banking footprint and related revenues and expenses are included in our Banking segment while the residential mortgage products and services originated outside of our community banking footprint and related revenues and expenses are included in our Mortgage segment. The Mortgage segment also includes our ConsumerDirect internet delivery channels, our Third Party Origination group and our mortgage servicing activities.

We intend to continue to take advantage of opportunities to grow our mortgage business as they present themselves, including by continuing to expand our mortgage business outside of our community banking footprint, improving the client experience through an enhanced fulfillment process, attracting experienced loan officers and improving profitability through centralized efficiencies and our capital markets execution. We have successfully maintained our ConsumerDirect internet delivery channel over the past year by increasing our marketing of this channel.  Additionally, we are continuing to develop our correspondent lending delivery channel, which will be a continued focus of future growth in 2018. We have managed to grow our mortgage business while maintaining a high-degree of scalability to control costs in the event of a downturn in our mortgage business. Our mortgage loan office leases are primarily short-term in nature and approximately 55% of our mortgage-related compensation is in the form of variable compensation. Our mortgage business offers attractive cross-selling opportunities for our consumer banking products through the origination process and our mortgage servicing book.

We look to originate quality mortgage loans with a focus on purchase money mortgages. In accordance with our lending policy, each loan undergoes a detailed underwriting process which incorporates uniform underwriting standards and oversight that satisfies secondary market standards as outlined by our investors and our internal policies. Mortgage loans are subject to the same uniform lending policies referenced below and consist primarily of loans with relatively stronger borrower credit scores, with an average FICO score of 731 during the year ended December 31, 2017.

The residential mortgage industry is highly competitive, and we compete with other community banks, regional banks, national banks, credit unions, mortgage companies, financial service companies and online mortgage companies. Due to the highly competitive nature of the residential mortgage industry, we expect to face continued industry-wide competitive

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pressures related to changing market conditions that will reduce our pricing margins and mortgage revenues generally, especially in a rising rate environment.

Our mortgage banking business is also directly impacted by the interest rate environment, increased regulations, consumer demand, driven in large part by general economic conditions and the real estate markets, and investor demand for mortgage securities. Mortgage production, especially refinancing activity, declines in rising interest rate environments. While we have not yet experienced a slowdown in our mortgage origination volume, due in part to our expansion of our mortgage banking business, our mortgage origination volume could be materially and adversely affected by rising interest rates, and we expect to see declining origination volume in 2018 within the industry.

During the year ended December 31, 2017, we had $7.6 billion in interest rate lock commitment volume, with 58% of these commitments being purchase money mortgage loans. Please see below for a breakdown of our interest rate lock commitment volume by distribution channel since 2015 and by product type in 2017:

Interest rate lock commitment volume by line of business ($ in millions)

Interest rate lock commitment volume by product type (year ended December 31, 2017)

Note: Conv = Conventional; VA = Veterans Affairs; USDA = United States Department of Agriculture Rural Housing Mortgage; FHA = Federal Housing Administration

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Investment and trust services

The Bank provides our individual clients access to investment services offered by LPL Financial (formerly INVEST Financial Corporation), an independent third-party broker-dealer that maintains offices in 41 of our bank branches. A full range of investment choices is available through LPL Financial for our clients, including equities, mutual funds, bonds, tax-exempt municipals, and annuities, as well as money management consultation. Life insurance products are also offered to our clients through FirstBank Insurance, Inc., a wholly-owned insurance agency. We also offer our business clients group retirement plan advisory services. We primarily market these services to retirees or pre-retirees with a minimum of $100,000 of investable assets, high income professionals earning more than $200,000 and businesses with group retirements plans that have more than $1 million in assets. We earn noninterest income from the investment and life insurance sales arrangements.

During 2017, the Bank began providing trust administration services as an extension to wealth management through the FirstBank Trust Department through the Clayton Banks acquisition.  With $567.4 million assets under management at December 31, 2017, a disciplined investment philosophy and a highly competitive fee schedule, FirstBank Trust primarily serves high-wealth bank relationships and a niche of charitable endowments and foundations.

Risk management

General

Our operating model demands a strong risk culture built to address multiple areas of risk, including credit risk, interest rate risk, liquidity risk, price risk, compliance risk, operational risk, strategic risk and reputational risk. Our risk culture is supported by investments in the right people and technologies to protect our business. Our board of directors and the Bank’s board of directors are ultimately responsible for overseeing risk management at the holding company and the Bank, respectively. We have a Chief Risk Officer who oversees risk management across our business (including the Bank) and reports directly to our Chief Executive Officer. Our board, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Risk Officer are supported by the heads of other functional areas at the Bank, including legal, IT, audit, compliance, capital markets and information and physical security. Our comprehensive risk management framework is designed to complement our core strategy of empowering our experienced, local bankers with local-decision making to better serve our clients.

Our credit policies support our goal of maintaining sound credit quality standards while achieving balance sheet growth, earnings growth, appropriate liquidity and other key objectives. We maintain a risk management infrastructure that includes local authority, centralized policymaking and a strong system of checks and balances. The fundamental principles of our credit policy and procedures are to maintain credit quality standards, which enhance our long-term value to our clients, associates, shareholders and communities. Our loan policies provide our bankers with a sufficient degree of flexibility to permit them to deliver responsive and effective lending solutions to our clients while maintaining appropriate credit quality. Furthermore, our bankers and associates are hired for the long-term and they are incentivized to focus on long-term credit quality. Since lending represents credit risk exposure, the Bank’s board of directors and its duly appointed committees seek to ensure that the Bank maintains appropriate credit quality standards. We have established oversight committees to administer the loan portfolio and monitor credit risk. These committees include our audit committee and credit committee, and they meet at least quarterly to review the lending activities of the Bank.

Credit concentration

Diversification of risk is a key factor in prudent asset management. Our loan portfolio is balanced between our metropolitan and community markets and by type, thereby diversifying our loan concentration. Our granular loan portfolio reflects a balanced mix of consumer and commercial clients across these markets that we think provides a natural hedge to industry and market cycles. In addition, risk from concentration is actively managed by management and reviewed by the board of directors of the Bank, and exposures relating to borrower, industry and commercial real estate categories are tracked and measured against policy limits. These limits are reviewed as part of our periodic review of the loan policy. Loan concentration levels are monitored by the credit administration department and reported to the board of directors of the Bank.

Loan approval process

The loan approval process at the Bank is characterized by local authority supported by a risk control environment that provides for prompt and thorough underwriting of loans. Our localized decision making is reinforced through a centralized review process supported by technology that monitors credits to ensure compliance with our credit policies. Our loan approval method is based on a hierarchy of individual lending authorities for new credits and renewals granted to our individual bankers, market presidents, credit officers, senior management and credit committee. The Bank’s board of directors establishes the maximum lending limits at each level and our senior management team sets individual authorities within these maximum limits to each individual based on demonstrated experience and expertise, and are

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periodically reviewed and updated. We believe that the ability to have individual loan authority up to specified levels based on experience and track record coupled with appropriate approval limits for our market presidents and credit officers allows us to provide prompt and appropriate responses to our clients while still allowing for the appropriate level of oversight.

As a relationship-oriented lender, rather than transaction-oriented lender, substantially all of our loans are made to borrowers or relationships located or operating in our market area. This provides us with a better understanding of their business, creditworthiness and the economic conditions in their market and industry. Furthermore, our associates are held accountable for all of their decisions, which effectively aligns their incentives to reflect appropriate risk management.

In considering loans, we follow the conservative underwriting principles set forth in our loan policy with a primary focus on the following factors:

As part of the approval process for any given loan, we seek to minimize risk in a variety of ways, including the following:

The board of directors of the Bank reviews and approves loan policy changes, monitors loan portfolio trends and credit trends, and reviews and approves loan transactions that exceed management thresholds as set forth in our loan policies. Loan pricing is established in conjunction with the loan approval process based on pricing guidelines for loans that are set by the Bank’s senior management. We believe that our loan approval process provides for thorough internal controls, underwriting, and decision making.

Lending limits

The Bank is limited in the amount it can loan in the aggregate to a single borrower or related borrowers by the amount of our capital. The Bank is a Tennessee chartered bank and therefore all branches, regardless of location, fall under the legal lending limits of the state of Tennessee. Tennessee’s legal lending limit is a safety and soundness measure intended to prevent one person or a relatively small and economically related group of persons from borrowing an unduly large amount of a bank’s funds. It is also intended to safeguard a bank’s depositors by diversifying the risk of loan losses among a relatively large number of creditworthy borrowers engaged in various types of businesses. Generally, under Tennessee law, loans and extensions of credit to a borrower may not exceed 15% of our bank’s Tier 1 capital, plus an additional 10% of the bank’s Tier 1 capital, with approval of the bank’s board. Further, the Bank may elect to conform to similar standards applicable to national banks under federal law, in lieu of Tennessee law. Because the federal law and Tennessee state law standards are determined as a percentage of the Bank’s capital, these state and federal limits both increase or decrease as the Bank’s capital increases or decreases. Based upon the capitalization of the Bank at December 31, 2017, the Bank’s legal lending limits were approximately $66 million (15%) and $111 million (25%). The Bank may seek to sell participations in our larger loans to other financial institutions, which will allow us to manage the risk involved in these loans and to meet the lending needs of our clients requiring extensions of credit in excess of these limits.

In addition to these legally imposed lending limits, we also employ appropriate limits on our overall loan portfolio and requirements with respect to certain types of lending and individual lending relationships. For example, we have lending limits related to maximum borrower, industry and certain types of commercial real estate exposures.

Enterprise risk management

We maintain an enterprise risk management program that helps us to identify, manage, monitor and control potential risks that may affect us, including credit risk, interest rate risk, liquidity risk, price risk, compliance risk, operational risk, strategic risk and reputational risk. Our operating model demands a strong risk culture built to address the multiple areas of risk we face, and our risk management strategy is supported by significant investments in the right people and technologies to protect the organization.

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Our comprehensive risk management framework and risk identification is a continuous process and occurs at both the transaction level and the portfolio level. While our local bankers and associates support our day-to-day risk practices, management seeks to identify interdependencies and correlations across portfolios and lines of business that may amplify risk exposure through a thorough centralized review process. Risk measurement helps us to control and monitor risk levels and is based on the sophistication of the risk measurement tools used to reflect the complexity and levels of assumed risk. We monitor risks and ensure compliance with our risk policies by timely reviewing risk positions and exceptions, investing in the technology to monitor credits, requiring senior management authority sign-off on larger credit requests and granting credit authority to bankers and officers based on demonstrated experience and expertise. This monitoring process ensures that management’s decisions are implemented for all geographies, products and legal entities.

We control risks through limits that are communicated through policies, standards, procedures and processes that define responsibility and authority. Such limits serve as a means to control exposures to the various risks associated with our activities, and are meaningful management tools that can be adjusted if conditions or risk tolerances change. In addition, we maintain a process to authorize exceptions or changes to risk limits when warranted. These risk management practices help to ensure effective reporting, compliance with all laws, rules and regulations, avoid damage to our reputation and related consequences, and attain our strategic goals while avoiding pitfalls and surprises along the way.

The board of directors of the Bank approves policies that set operational standards and risk limits, and any changes require approval by the Bank’s board of directors. Management is responsible for the implementation, integrity and maintenance of our risk management systems ensuring the directives are implemented and administered in compliance with the approved policy. Our Chief Risk Officer supervises the overall management of our risk management program, reports to management and yet also retains independent access to the Bank’s board of directors.

Credit risk management

Credit risk management is a key component of our risk management program. We employ consistent analysis and underwriting to examine credit information and prepare underwriting documentation. We monitor and approve exceptions to our credit policies as required, and we also track and address technical exceptions.

Each loan officer has the primary responsibility for appropriately risk rating each commercial loan that is made. In addition, our credit administration department is responsible for the ongoing monitoring of loan portfolio performance through the review of ongoing financial reports, loan officer reports, audit reviews and exception reporting and concentration analysis. This monitoring process also includes an ongoing review of loan risk ratings and management of our allowance for loan losses. We have a Chief Credit Officer responsible for maintaining the integrity of our portfolio within the parameters of the credit policy. We utilize a risk grading system that enables management to differentiate individual loan quality and forecast future profitability and portfolio loss potential.

We assign a credit risk rating at the time a commercial loan is made and adjust it promptly as conditions warrant. Portfolio monitoring systems allow management to proactively assess risk and make decisions that will minimize the impact of negative developments. We promote open communication to minimize or eliminate surprises. Successful credit management is achieved by lenders consistently meeting with clients and reviewing their financial conditions regularly. This enables both the recognition of future opportunities and potential weaknesses early.

The Bank’s board of directors supports a strong loan review program and is committed to its effectiveness as part of the independent process of assessing our lending activities. We have communicated to our credit and lending staff that the identification of emerging problem loans begins with the lending personnel knowing their client and, supported by credit personnel, actively monitoring their client relationships. The loan review process is meant to augment this active management of client relationships and to provide an independent and broad-based look into our lending activities. We believe that our strong client relationships support our ability to identify potential deterioration of our credits at an early stage enabling us to address these issues early on to minimize potential losses.

We maintain a robust loan review function by utilizing an internal loan review team as well as third-party loan review firms that report to the board of directors of the Bank to ensure independence and objectivity. The examinations performed by the loan review department are based on risk assessments of individual loan commitments within our loan portfolio over a period of time. At the conclusion of each review, the loan review department provides management and the board of directors with a report that summarizes the findings of the review. At a minimum, the report addresses risk rating accuracy, compliance with regulations and policies, loan documentation accuracy, the timely receipt of financial statements, and any additional material issues.

When delinquencies in our loans exist, we rigorously monitor the levels of such delinquencies for any negative or adverse trends. From time to time, we may modify loans to extend the term or make other concessions to help a borrower with a deteriorating financial condition stay current on their loan and to avoid foreclosure. We generally do not forgive principal or

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interest on loans or modify the interest rates on loans to rates that are below market rates. Furthermore, we are committed to collecting on all of our loans and, as a result, at times have lower net charge-offs compared to our peer banks. This practice can result in us carrying higher nonperforming assets on our books than our peers, however, our nonperforming assets in recent years have been lower than peers due to strong asset quality.  Our commitment to collecting on all of our loans, coupled with our knowledge of our borrowers, sometimes results in higher loan recoveries. We believe that we are well reserved for losses resulting from our non-performing assets.

Liquidity and interest rate risk management

Our liquidity planning framework is focused on ensuring the lowest cost of funding available and planning for unpredictable funding circumstances. To achieve these objectives, we utilize a simple funding and capital structure consisting primarily of deposits and common equity. We remain continually focused on growing our noninterest bearing and other low-cost core deposits while replacing higher cost funding options, including wholesale time deposits and other borrowed debt, to fund our balance sheet growth. The following chart shows our simple funding structure as of December 31, 2017.

Funding structure as of December 31, 2017

In addition, we monitor our liquidity risk by adopting policies to define potential liquidity problems, reviewing and maintaining an updated liquidity contingency plan and providing a prudent capital structure consistent with our credit standing and plans for strategic growth.

Our interest risk management system is overseen by our board of directors, who has the authority to approve acceptable rate risk levels. Our board of directors has established the Asset Liability Committee to ensure appropriate risk appetite by requiring:

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Competition

We conduct our core banking operations primarily in Tennessee and compete in the commercial banking industry solely through our wholly-owned banking subsidiary, FirstBank. The banking industry is highly competitive, and we experience competition in our market areas from many other financial institutions. We compete with commercial banks, credit unions, savings institutions, mortgage banking firms, online mortgage lenders, consumer finance companies, securities brokerage firms, insurance companies, money market funds and other mutual funds, as well as super-regional, national and international financial institutions that operate offices in our market areas and elsewhere. In addition, a number of out-of-state financial intermediaries have opened production offices, or otherwise solicit deposits, in our market areas. Increased competition in our markets may result in reduced loans and deposits, as well as reduced net interest margin and profitability. Furthermore, the Tennessee market has grown increasingly competitive in recent years with a number of banks entering this market, with a primary focus on the state’s metropolitan markets. We believe this trend will continue as banks look to gain a foothold in these growing markets. This trend will result in greater competition primarily in our metropolitan markets. However, we firmly believe that our market position and client-focused operating model enhances our ability to attract and retain clients.

See “Our markets” in this section above for a further discussion of the markets we compete in and the competitive landscape in these markets.

Our associates

As of December 31, 2017, we had 1,335 full-time associates and 51 part-time associates. We pride ourselves on maintaining good relations with our associates. None of our employees are represented by any collective bargaining unit or are parties to a collective bargaining agreement.

Information technology systems

We have recently made and continue to make significant investments in our technology platforms. In 2014, we completed an upgrade to our consumer online banking, mobile and voice platforms deploying competitive technology to support consumer self-service banking behavior. During 2015, we completed the installation of a dedicated commercial cash management platform that is configurable at a client segment level supporting a broad range of client needs. We also developed a commercial mobile and tablet app that we launched in late 2016.

During the second quarter of 2016, we successfully converted our core operating platform to the Jack Henry Silverlake platform. This core conversion includes the replacement of our core, teller platform, loan and deposit platforms, as well as a number of other ancillary systems, which we believe helped us achieve a scalable and efficient operations function. Additionally, the core conversion positioned us to offer new products and services that improves our overall customer experience and enhances our ability to attract new households.

Supervision and regulation

The following is a general summary of the material aspects of certain statutes and regulations applicable to us and the Bank. These summary descriptions are not complete, and you should refer to the full text of the statutes, regulations, and corresponding guidance for more information. These statutes and regulations are subject to change, and additional statutes, regulations, and corresponding guidance may be adopted. We are unable to predict these future changes or the effects, if any, that these changes could have on our business, revenues, and financial results.

General

As a registered bank holding company, we are subject to regulation, supervision, and examination by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, or Federal Reserve, under the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956, as amended (the “BHCA”). In addition, as a Tennessee state-chartered bank that is not a member of the Federal Reserve System, the Bank is subject to primary regulation, supervision, and examination by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or FDIC, and the Bank’s state banking regulator, the Tennessee Department of Financial Institutions, or TDFI. Supervision, regulation, and examination of us and the Bank by the bank regulatory agencies are intended primarily for the protection of consumers, bank depositors and the Deposit Insurance Fund of the FDIC, rather than holders of our capital stock.

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Changes as a result of the Dodd-Frank Act

As a result of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, or Dodd-Frank Act, the regulatory framework under which we and the Bank operate has changed. The Dodd-Frank Act brought about a significant overhaul of many aspects of the regulation of the financial services industry, addressing issues including, among others, systemic risk, capital adequacy, deposit insurance assessments, consumer financial protection, interchange fees, lending limits, mortgage lending practices, registration of investment advisers and changes among the bank regulatory agencies. In particular, portions of the Dodd-Frank Act that affected us and the Bank include, but are not limited to:

The list above is not exhaustive. It reflects our current assessment of the Dodd-Frank Act provisions and implementing rules that are reasonably possible to have a substantial impact on us in the future.

Holding company regulation

As a regulated bank holding company, we are subject to various laws and regulations that affect our business. These laws and regulations, among other matters, prescribe minimum capital requirements, limit transactions with affiliates, impose limitations on the business activities in which we can engage, limit the dividend or distributions that the Bank can pay to us, restrict the ability of institutions to guarantee our debt, and impose certain specific accounting requirements on us that may be more restrictive and may result in greater or earlier charges to earnings or reductions in our capital than generally accepted accounting principles, among other things.

Permitted activities

Under the BHCA, as amended, a bank holding company is generally permitted to engage in, or acquire direct or indirect control of more than five percent of any class of the voting shares of any company that is not a bank or bank holding company and that is engaged in, the following activities (in each case, subject to certain conditions and restrictions and prior approval of the Federal Reserve):

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While the Federal Reserve has found these activities in the past acceptable for other bank holding companies, the Federal Reserve may not allow us to conduct any or all of these activities, which are reviewed by the Federal Reserve on a case by case basis upon application by a bank holding company.

The Federal Reserve has the authority to order a bank holding company or its subsidiaries to terminate any of these activities or to terminate its ownership or control of any subsidiary when it has reasonable cause to believe that the bank holding company’s continued ownership, activity or control constitutes a serious risk to the financial safety, soundness or stability of it or any of its bank subsidiaries.

Acquisitions subject to prior regulatory approval

The BHCA requires the prior approval of the Federal Reserve for a bank holding company to acquire substantially all the assets of a bank or to acquire direct or indirect ownership or control of more than 5% of any class of the voting shares of any bank, bank holding company, savings and loan holding company or savings association, or to increase any such non-majority ownership or control of any bank, bank holding company, savings and loan holding company or savings association, or to merge or consolidate with any bank holding company.

Under the BHCA, if “well capitalized” and “well managed”, as defined under the BHCA and implementing regulations, we or any other bank holding company located in Tennessee may purchase a bank located outside of Tennessee. Conversely, a well-capitalized and well-managed bank holding company located outside of Tennessee may purchase a bank located inside Tennessee. In each case, however, restrictions may be placed on the acquisition of a bank that has only been in existence for a limited amount of time or will result in concentrations of deposits exceeding limits specified by statute. For example, Tennessee law currently prohibits a bank holding company from acquiring control of a Tennessee-based financial institution until the target financial institution has been in operation for at least three years.

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Bank holding company obligations to bank subsidiaries

Under current law and Federal Reserve policy, a bank holding company is expected to act as a source of financial and managerial strength to its depository institution subsidiaries and to maintain resources adequate to support such subsidiaries, which could require us to commit resources to support the Bank in situations where additional investments in a bank may not otherwise be warranted. These situations include guaranteeing the compliance of an “undercapitalized” bank with its obligations under a capital restoration plan, as described further under “Bank regulation-: Capitalization levels and prompt corrective action” below. As a result of these obligations, a bank holding company may be required to contribute additional capital to its subsidiaries in the form of capital notes or other instruments that qualify as capital under regulatory rules. Any such loan from a holding company to a subsidiary bank is likely to be unsecured and subordinated to the bank’s depositors and perhaps to other creditors of the bank. If we were to enter bankruptcy or become subject to the orderly liquidation process established by the Dodd-Frank Act, any commitment by us to a federal bank regulatory agency to maintain the capital of the Bank would be assumed by the bankruptcy trustee or the FDIC, as appropriate, and entitled to a priority of payment.

Restrictions on bank holding company dividends.

The Federal Reserve’s policy regarding dividends is that a bank holding company should not declare or pay a cash dividend which would impose undue pressure on the capital of any bank subsidiary or would be funded only through borrowing or other arrangements that might adversely affect a bank holding company’s financial position. As a general matter, the Federal Reserve has indicated that the board of directors of a bank holding company should consult with the Federal Reserve and eliminate, defer or significantly reduce the bank holding company’s dividends if:

Should an insured depository institution controlled by a bank holding company be “significantly undercapitalized” under the applicable federal bank capital ratios, or if the bank subsidiary is “undercapitalized” and has failed to submit an acceptable capital restoration plan or has materially failed to implement such a plan, federal banking regulators (in the case of the Bank, the FDIC) may choose to require prior Federal Reserve approval for any capital distribution by the bank holding company. For more information, see “Bank regulation: Capitalization levels and prompt corrective action.”

In addition, since our legal entity is separate and distinct from the Bank and does not conduct stand-alone operations, our ability to pay dividends depends on the ability of the Bank to pay dividends to us, which is also subject to regulatory restrictions as described below in “Bank regulation: Bank dividends.”

Under Tennessee law, we are not permitted to pay cash dividends if, after giving effect to such payment, we would not be able to pay our debts as they become due in the usual course of business or our total assets would be less than the sum of our total liabilities plus any amounts needed to satisfy any preferential rights if we were dissolving. In addition, in deciding whether or not to declare a dividend of any particular size, our board of directors must consider our current and prospective capital, liquidity, and other needs.

U.S. Basel III capital rules

In July 2013, federal banking regulators, including the Federal Reserve and the FDIC, adopted the U.S. Basel Capital Rules implementing many aspects of the Basel III Capital Standards.

The U.S. Basel III Capital Rules apply to all national and state banks and savings associations and most bank holding companies and savings and loan holding companies, which we collectively refer to herein as “covered” banking organizations. The requirements in the U.S. Basel III Capital Rules started to phase in on January 1, 2015, for many covered banking organizations, including the Company and the Bank. The requirements in the U.S. Basel III Capital Rules will be fully phased in by January 1, 2019.

The U.S. Basel III Capital Rules impose higher risk-based capital and leverage requirements than those previously in place. Specifically, the rules impose the following minimum capital requirements applicable to us and the Bank:

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Under the U.S. Basel III Capital Rules, Tier 1 Capital is defined to include two components: common equity Tier 1 Capital and additional Tier 1 Capital. The highest form of capital, Common Equity Tier 1 Capital, or CET1 Capital, consists solely of common stock (plus related surplus), retained earnings, accumulated other comprehensive income, and limited amounts of minority interests that are in the form of common stock. Additional Tier 1 Capital includes other perpetual instruments historically included in Tier 1 Capital, such as non-cumulative perpetual preferred stock.

The rules permit bank holding companies with less than $15.0 billion in total consolidated assets, such as us, to continue to include trust-preferred securities and cumulative perpetual preferred stock issued before May 19, 2010, in Tier 1 Capital, but not in CET1 Capital, subject to certain restrictions. Tier 2 Capital consists of instruments that currently qualify in Tier 2 Capital plus instruments that the rule has disqualified from Tier 1 Capital treatment. We have outstanding trust-preferred securities, issued as debt securities. The first issue was for $21,000,000 (21,000 securities priced at $1,000 each) plus $650,000 in the related common securities, and the second issue was for $9,000,000 (9,000 securities priced at $1,000 each) plus $280,000 in the related common securities.

In addition, in order to avoid restrictions on capital distributions or discretionary bonus payments to executives, a covered banking organization must maintain a capital conservation buffer on top of its minimum risk-based capital requirements. This buffer must consist solely of Tier 1 Common Equity, but the buffer applies to all three risk-based measurements (Common Equity Tier 1, Tier 1 Capital and total capital). The capital conservation buffer will be phased in incrementally over time, becoming fully effective on January 1, 2019, and will consist of an additional amount of common equity equal to 2.5% of risk-weighted assets.

The U.S. Basel III Capital Standards require certain deductions from or adjustments to capital. As a result, deductions from CET1 Capital will be required for goodwill (net of associated deferred tax liabilities); intangible assets such as non-mortgage servicing assets and purchased credit card relationships (net of associated deferred tax liabilities); deferred tax assets that arise from net operating loss and tax credit carryforwards (net of any related valuations allowances and net of deferred tax liabilities); any gain on sale in connection with a securitization exposure; any defined benefit pension fund net asset (net of any associated deferred tax liabilities) held by a bank holding company; the aggregate amount of outstanding equity investments (including retained earnings) in financial subsidiaries; and identified losses. Other deductions are required from different levels of capital. The U.S. Basel III Capital Rules also increase the risk weight for certain assets, meaning that more capital must be held against such assets. For example, commercial real estate loans that do not meet certain new underwriting requirements must be risk-weighted at 150% rather than the current 100%.

Additionally, the U.S. Basel III Capital Standards provide for the deduction of three categories of assets: (i) deferred tax assets arising from temporary differences that cannot be realized through net operating loss carrybacks (net of related valuation allowances and of deferred tax liabilities), (ii) mortgage servicing assets (net of associated deferred tax liabilities) and (iii) investments in more than 10% of the issued and outstanding common stock of unconsolidated financial institutions (net of associated deferred tax liabilities). The amount in each category that exceeds 10% of CET1 Capital must be deducted from CET1 Capital. The remaining, non-deducted amounts are then aggregated, and the amount by which this total amount exceeds 15% of CET1 Capital must be deducted from CET1 Capital. Amounts of minority investments in consolidated subsidiaries that exceed certain limits and investments in unconsolidated financial institutions may also have to be deducted from the category of capital to which such instruments belong.

Accumulated other comprehensive income, or AOCI, is presumptively included in CET1 Capital and often would operate to reduce this category of capital. The U.S. Basel III Capital Rules provided a one-time opportunity at the end of the first quarter of 2015 for covered banking organizations to opt out of much of this treatment of AOCI. We elected to opt out. The rules also have the effect of increasing capital requirements by increasing the risk weights on certain assets, including high volatility commercial real estate, mortgage servicing rights not includable in CET1 Capital, equity exposures, and claims on securities firms, which are used in the denominator of the three risk-based capital ratios.

When fully phased in on January 1, 2019, the U.S. Basel III Capital Rules will require us and the Bank to maintain (i) a minimum ratio of CET1 Capital to risk-weighted assets of at least 4.5%, plus the 2.5% capital conservation buffer, effectively resulting in a minimum ratio of CET1 Capital to risk-weighted assets of at least 7.0%, (ii) a minimum ratio of Tier 1 Capital to risk-weighted assets of at least 6.0%, plus the capital conservation buffer, effectively resulting in a minimum Tier 1 Capital ratio of 8.5%, (iii) a minimum ratio of total capital (that is, Tier 1 plus Tier 2) to risk-weighted assets of at least 8.0%, plus the capital conservation buffer, effectively resulting in a minimum total capital ratio of 10.5% and (iv) a minimum leverage ratio of 4%, calculated as the ratio of Tier 1 Capital to average assets. Management believes that we and the Bank would meet all capital adequacy requirements under the U.S. Basel III Capital Rules on a fully phased-in basis if such requirements were currently effective.

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The U.S. Basel III Capital Rules also make important changes to the “prompt corrective action” framework discussed below in “Bank regulation: Capitalization levels and prompt corrective action.”

Restrictions on affiliate transactions

See “Bank regulation: Restrictions on transactions with affiliates” below.

Change in control

We are a bank holding company regulated by the Federal Reserve. Subject to certain exceptions, the Change in Bank Control Act, or (“CIBCA”), and its implementing regulations require that any individual or company acquiring “control” of a bank or bank holding company, either directly or indirectly, give the Federal Reserve 60 days’ prior written notice of the proposed acquisition. If within that time period the Federal Reserve has not issued a notice disapproving the proposed acquisition, extended the period for an additional period up to 90 days or requested additional information, the acquisition may proceed. An acquisition may be made before expiration of the disapproval period if the Federal Reserve issues written notice that it intends not to disapprove the acquisition. Acquisition of 25 percent or more of any class of voting securities constitutes control, and it is generally presumed for purposes of the CIBCA that the acquisition of 10 percent or more of any class of voting securities would constitute the acquisition of control, although such a presumption of control may be rebutted.

Also, under the CIBCA, the shareholdings of individuals and companies that are deemed to be “acting in concert” would be aggregated for purposes of determining whether such holders “control” a bank or bank holding company. “Acting in concert” under the CIBCA generally means knowing participation in a joint activity or parallel action towards the common goal of acquiring control of a bank or a bank holding company, whether or not pursuant to an express agreement. The manner in which this definition is applied in individual circumstances can vary and cannot always be predicted with certainty. Many factors can lead to a rebuttable presumption of acting in concert, including where: (i) the shareholders are commonly controlled or managed; (ii) the shareholders are parties to an oral or written agreement or understanding regarding the acquisition, voting or transfer of control of voting securities of a bank or bank holding company; (iii) the shareholders are immediate family members; or (iv) both a shareholder and a controlling shareholder, partner, trustee or management official of such shareholder own equity in the bank or bank holding company.

Furthermore, under the BHCA and its implementing regulations, and subject to certain exceptions, any company would be required to obtain Federal Reserve approval prior to obtaining control of a bank or bank holding company. Control under the BHCA exists where a company acquires 25 percent or more of any class of voting securities, has the ability to elect a majority of a bank holding company’s directors, is found to exercise a “controlling influence” over a bank or bank holding company’s management and policies, and in certain other circumstances. There is a presumption of non-control for any holder of less than 5% of any class of voting securities. In addition, in 2008 the Federal Reserve issued a policy statement on equity investments in banks and bank holding companies, which sets out circumstances under which a minority investor would not be deemed to control a bank or bank holding company for purposes of the BHCA. Among other things, the 2008 policy statement permits a minority investor to hold up to 24.9% (or 33.3% under certain circumstances) of the total equity (voting and non-voting combined) and have at least one representative on the company’s board of directors (with two directors permitted under certain circumstances).

Compensation and risk management

In 2010, the federal banking agencies issued guidance to regulated banks and bank holding companies intended to ensure that incentive compensation arrangements at financial organizations take into account risk and are consistent with safe and sound practices. The guidance is based on three “key principles” calling for incentive compensation plans to: appropriately balance risks and rewards; be compatible with effective controls and risk management; and be backed up by strong corporate governance. Further, in 2016 the federal banking regulators re-proposed rules that would prohibit incentive compensation arrangements that would encourage inappropriate risks by providing excessive compensation or that could lead to a material financial loss, and include certain prescribed standards for governance and risk management for incentive compensation for institutions, such as us, that have over $1 billion in consolidated assets.

Bank regulation

The Bank is a banking institution that is chartered by and headquartered in the State of Tennessee, and it is subject to supervision and regulation by the TDFI and the FDIC. The TDFI and FDIC supervise and regulate all areas of the Bank’s operations including, without limitation, the making of loans, the issuance of securities, the conduct of the Bank’s corporate affairs, the satisfaction of capital adequacy requirements, the payment of dividends, and the establishment or closing of banking offices. The FDIC is the Bank’s primary federal regulatory agency, which periodically examines the Bank’s operations and financial condition and compliance with federal consumer protection laws. In addition, the Bank’s

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deposit accounts are insured by the FDIC to the maximum extent permitted by law, and the FDIC has certain enforcement powers over the Bank.

As a state-chartered banking institution in the State of Tennessee, the Bank is empowered by statute, subject to the limitations contained in those statutes, to take and pay interest on deposits, to make loans on residential and other real estate, to make consumer and commercial loans, to invest, with certain limitations, in equity securities and in debt obligations of banks and corporations and to provide various other banking services for the benefit of the Bank’s clients. Various state consumer laws and regulations also affect the operations of the Bank, including state usury laws, consumer credit and equal credit opportunity laws, and fair credit reporting. In addition, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act of 1991, or FDICIA, generally prohibits insured state chartered institutions from conducting activities as principal that are not permitted for national banks. The Bank is also subject to various requirements and restrictions under federal and state law, including but not limited to requirements to maintain reserves against deposits, lending limits, limitations on branching activities, limitations on the types of investments that may be made, activities that may be engaged in, and types of services that may be offered. Various consumer laws and regulations also affect the operations of the Bank. Also, the Bank and certain of its subsidiaries are prohibited from engaging in certain tying arrangements in connection with extensions of credit, leases or sales of property, or furnishing products or services.

Capital adequacy

See “Holding company regulation: U.S. Basel III capital rules.”

Capitalization levels and prompt corrective action

Federal law and regulations establish a capital-based regulatory scheme designed to promote early intervention for troubled banks and require the FDIC to choose the least expensive resolution of bank failures. The capital-based regulatory framework contains five categories of regulatory capital requirements, including “well capitalized,” “adequately capitalized,” “undercapitalized,” “significantly undercapitalized,” and “critically undercapitalized.” A well-capitalized insured depository institution is one (i) having a total risk-based capital ratio of 10 percent or greater, (ii) having a Tier 1 risk-based capital ratio of 8 percent or greater, (iii) having a CET1 capital ratio of 6.5 percent or greater, (iv) having a leverage capital ratio of 5 percent or greater and (v) that is not subject to any order or written directive to meet and maintain a specific capital level for any capital measure.

Generally, a financial institution must be “well capitalized” before the Federal Reserve will approve an application by a bank holding company to acquire a bank or merge with a bank holding company, and the FDIC applies the same requirement in approving bank merger applications.

Immediately upon becoming undercapitalized, a depository institution becomes subject to the provisions of Section 38 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act, or FDIA, which: (i) restrict payment of capital distributions and management fees; (ii) require that the appropriate federal banking agency monitor the condition of the institution and its efforts to restore its capital; (iii) require submission of a capital restoration plan; (iv) restrict the growth of the institution’s assets; and (v) require prior approval of certain expansion proposals. Bank holding companies controlling financial institutions can be called upon to boost the institutions’ capital and to partially guarantee the institutions’ performance under their capital restoration plans. The appropriate federal banking agency for an undercapitalized institution also may take any number of discretionary supervisory actions if the agency determines that any of these actions is necessary to resolve the problems of the institution at the least possible long-term cost to the deposit insurance fund, subject in certain cases to specified procedures. These discretionary supervisory actions include: (i) requiring the institution to raise additional capital; (ii) restricting transactions with affiliates; (iii) requiring divestiture of the institution or the sale of the institution to a willing purchaser; (iv) requiring the institution to change and improve its management; (iv) prohibiting the acceptance of deposits from correspondent banks; (v) requiring prior Federal Reserve approval for any capital distribution by a bank holding company controlling the institution; and (vi) any other supervisory action that the agency deems appropriate. These and additional mandatory and permissive supervisory actions may be taken with respect to significantly undercapitalized and critically undercapitalized institutions.

As of December 31, 2017, the Bank had sufficient capital to qualify as “well capitalized” under the requirements contained in the applicable regulations, policies and directives pertaining to capital adequacy, and it is unaware of any material violation or alleged material violation of these regulations, policies or directives. Rapid growth, poor loan portfolio performance, or poor earnings performance, or a combination of these factors, could change the Bank’s capital position in a relatively short period of time, making additional capital infusions necessary.

It should be noted that the minimum ratios referred to above in this section are merely guidelines, and the bank regulators possess the discretionary authority to require higher capital ratios.

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Bank reserves

The Federal Reserve requires all depository institutions, even if not members of the Federal Reserve System, to maintain reserves against some transaction accounts. The balances maintained to meet the reserve requirements imposed by the Federal Reserve may be used to satisfy liquidity requirements. An institution may borrow from the Federal Reserve Bank “discount window” as a secondary source of funds, provided that the institution meets the Federal Reserve Bank’s credit standards.

Bank dividends

The FDIC prohibits any distribution that would result in the bank being “undercapitalized” (<4% leverage ratio, <4.5% CET1 Risk-Based ratio, <6% Tier 1 Risk-Based ratio, or <8% Total Risk-Based ratio). Tennessee law places restrictions on the declaration of dividends by state chartered banks to their shareholders, including, but not limited to, that the board of directors of a Tennessee-chartered bank may only make a dividend from the surplus profits arising from the business of the bank, and may not declare dividends in any calendar year that exceeds the total of its retained net income of that year combined with its retained net income of the preceding two (2) years without the prior approval of the TDFI commissioner. Furthermore, the TDFI also has authority to prohibit the payment of dividends by a Tennessee bank when it determines such payment to be an unsafe and unsound banking practice.

Insurance of accounts and other assessments

The Bank pays deposit insurance assessments to the Deposit Insurance Fund, which is determined through a risk-based assessment system. The Bank’s deposit accounts are currently insured by the Deposit Insurance Fund, generally up to a maximum of $250,000 per separately insured depositor. The Bank pays assessments to the FDIC for such deposit insurance. Under the current assessment system, the FDIC assigns an institution to a risk category based on the institution’s most recent supervisory and capital evaluations, which are designed to measure risk. Under the FDIA, the FDIC may terminate a bank’s deposit insurance upon a finding that the institution has engaged in unsafe and unsound practices, is in an unsafe or unsound condition to continue operations, or has violated any applicable law, regulation, rule, order, agreement or condition imposed by the FDIC.

In addition, all FDIC-insured institutions are required to pay assessments to the FDIC to fund interest payments on bonds issued by the Financing Corporation, or FICO, a federal government corporation established to recapitalize the predecessor to the Savings Association Insurance Fund. FICO assessments are set quarterly and the assessment rate was .590 (annual) basis points for all four quarters in 2015, .560 (annual) basis points for all four quarters in 2016, and .520 (annual) basis points for all four quarters in 2017.  These assessments will continue until the FICO bonds mature in 2017 through 2019.

Restrictions on transactions with affiliates

The Bank is subject to sections 23A and 23B of the Federal Reserve Act, or FRA, and the Federal Reserve’s Regulation W, as made applicable to state nonmember banks by section 18(j) of the FDIA. An affiliate of a bank is any company or entity that controls, is controlled by or is under common control with the Bank, and, in our case, includes, among others, the Company as well as our Executive Chairman, James W. Ayers and the companies he controls. Accordingly, transactions between the Bank, on the one hand, and the Company or Mr. Ayers or any of his affiliates, on the other hand, will be subject to a number of restrictions, including restrictions relating to extensions of credit, contracts, leases and purchases or sale of assets. Such restrictions and limitations prevent the Company or Mr. Ayers or his affiliates from borrowing from the Bank unless the loans are secured by specified collateral of designated amounts. Furthermore, such secured loans by the Bank to the Company or Mr. Ayers and his affiliates are limited, individually, to ten percent (10%) of the Bank’s capital and surplus, and such secured loans are limited in the aggregate to twenty percent (20%) of the Bank’s capital and surplus.

All such transactions must be on terms that are no less favorable to the Bank than those that would be available from nonaffiliated third parties. Federal Reserve policies also forbid the payment by bank subsidiaries of management fees which are unreasonable in amount or exceed the fair market value of the services rendered or, if no market exists, actual costs plus a reasonable profit.

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Loans to insiders

Loans to executive officers, directors or to any person who directly or indirectly, or acting through or in concert with one or more persons, owns, controls or has the power to vote more than 10% of any class of voting securities of a bank, which the Bank refers to as “10% Shareholders,” or to any political or campaign committee the funds or services of which will benefit those executive officers, directors, or 10% Shareholders or which is controlled by those executive officers, directors or 10% Shareholders, are subject to Sections 22(g) and 22(h) of the FRA and their corresponding regulations, which are commonly referred to as Regulation O. Among other things, these loans must be made on terms substantially the same as those prevailing on transactions made to unaffiliated individuals and certain extensions of credit to those persons must first be approved in advance by a disinterested majority of the entire board of directors. Regulation O prohibits loans to any of those individuals where the aggregate amount exceeds an amount equal to 15% of an institution’s unimpaired capital and surplus plus an additional 10% of unimpaired capital and surplus in the case of loans that are fully secured by readily marketable collateral, or when the aggregate amount on all of the extensions of credit outstanding to all of these persons would exceed the Bank’s unimpaired capital and unimpaired surplus. Section 22(g) identifies limited circumstances in which the Bank is permitted to extend credit to executive officers.  

Community Reinvestment Act

The Community Reinvestment Act, or CRA, and its corresponding regulations are intended to encourage banks to help meet the credit needs of their service areas, including low and moderate-income neighborhoods, consistent with safe and sound operations. These regulations provide for regulatory assessment of a bank’s record in meeting the credit needs of its service area. Federal banking agencies are required to make public a rating of a bank’s performance under the CRA. The federal banking agencies consider a bank’s CRA rating when a bank submits an application to establish banking centers, merge, or acquire the assets and assume the liabilities of another bank. In the case of a bank holding company, the CRA performance record of all banks involved in the merger or acquisition are reviewed in connection with the filing of an application to acquire ownership or control of shares or assets of a bank or to merge with any other financial holding company. An unsatisfactory record can substantially delay, block or impose conditions on the transaction. The Bank received a satisfactory rating on its most recent CRA assessment.

Branching

The Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994, or Riegle-Neal Act, provides that adequately capitalized and managed bank holding companies are permitted to acquire banks in any state. Previously, under the Riegle-Neal Act, a bank’s ability to branch into a particular state was largely dependent upon whether the state “opted in” to de novo interstate branching. Many states did not “opt-in,” which resulted in branching restrictions in those states. The Dodd-Frank Act amended the Riegle-Neal legal framework for interstate branching to permit national banks and state banks to establish branches in any state if that state would permit the establishment of the branch by a state bank chartered in that state. Under current Tennessee law, our bank may open branch offices throughout Tennessee with the prior approval of the TDFI. All branching remains subject to applicable regulatory approval and adherence to applicable legal requirements.

Anti-money laundering and economic sanctions

The USA PATRIOT Act provides the federal government with additional powers to address terrorist threats through enhanced domestic security measures, expanded surveillance powers, increased information sharing and broadened anti-money laundering requirements. By way of amendments to the BSA, the USA PATRIOT Act imposed new requirements that obligate financial institutions, such as banks, to take certain steps to control the risks associated with money laundering and terrorist financing.

Among other requirements, the USA PATRIOT Act and implementing regulations require banks to establish anti-money laundering programs that include, at a minimum:

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Additionally, the USA PATRIOT Act requires each financial institution to develop a customer identification program (“CIP”) as part of the Bank’s anti-money laundering program. The key components of the CIP are identification, verification, government list comparison, notice and record retention. The purpose of the CIP is to enable the financial institution to determine the true identity and anticipated account activity of each client. To make this determination, among other things, the financial institution must collect certain information from clients at the time they enter into the client relationship with the financial institution. This information must be verified within a reasonable time through documentary and non-documentary methods. Furthermore, all clients must be screened against any CIP-related government lists of known or suspected terrorists. Financial institutions are also required to comply with various reporting and recordkeeping requirements. The Federal Reserve and the FDIC consider an applicant’s effectiveness in combating money laundering, among other factors, in connection with an application to approve a bank merger or acquisition of control of a bank or bank holding company.

Likewise, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, is responsible for helping to ensure that United States entities do not engage in transactions with the subjects of U.S. sanctions, as defined by various Executive Orders and Acts of Congress. Currently, OFAC administers and enforces comprehensive U.S. economic sanctions programs against certain specified countries/regions. In addition to the country/region-wide sanctions programs, OFAC also administers complete embargoes against individuals and entities identified on OFAC’s list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (“SDN List”). The SDN List includes over 7000 parties that are located in many jurisdictions throughout the world, including in the United States and Europe. The Bank is responsible for determining whether any potential and/or existing clients appear on the SDN List or are owned or controlled by a person on the SDN List. If any client appears on the SDN List or is owned or controlled by a person or entity on the SDN List, such client’s account must be placed on hold and a blocking or rejection report, as appropriate and if required, must be filed within 10 business days with OFAC. In addition, if a client is a citizen of, has provided an address in, or is organized under the laws of any country or region for which OFAC maintains a comprehensive sanctions program, the Bank must take certain actions with respect to such clients as dictated under the relevant OFAC sanctions program. The Bank must maintain compliance with OFAC by implementing appropriate policies and procedures and by establishing a recordkeeping system that is reasonably appropriate to administer the Bank’s compliance program. The Bank has adopted policies, procedures and controls to comply with the BSA, the USA PATRIOT Act and OFAC regulations.

Regulatory enforcement authority

Federal and state banking laws grant substantial enforcement powers to federal and state banking regulators. This enforcement authority includes, among other things, the ability to assess civil money penalties, to issue cease and desist or removal orders and to initiate injunctive actions against banking organizations and “institution-affiliated parties,” such as management, employees and agents. In general, these enforcement actions may be initiated for violations of laws, regulations and orders of regulatory authorities, or unsafe or unsound practices. Other actions or inactions, including filing false, misleading or untimely reports with regulatory authorities, may provide the basis for enforcement action. When issued by a banking regulator, cease-and-desist and similar orders may, among other things, require affirmative action to correct any harm resulting from a violation or practice, including restitution, reimbursement, indemnifications or guarantees against loss. A bank may also be ordered to restrict its growth, dispose of certain assets, rescind agreements or contracts, or take other actions determined to be appropriate by the ordering regulatory agency.

Federal home loan bank system

The Bank is a member of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati, which is one of 12 regional Federal Home Loan Banks (“FHLBs”). Each FHLB serves as a reserve or central bank for its members within its assigned region. It is funded primarily from funds deposited by member institutions and proceeds from the sale of consolidated obligations of the FHLB system. It makes loans to members (i.e., advances) in accordance with policies and procedures established by the board of directors of the FHLB.

As a member of the FHLB of Cincinnati, the Bank is required to own capital stock in the FHLB in an amount generally at least equal to 0.20% (or 20 basis points) of the Bank’s total assets at the end of each calendar year, plus 4.5% of its outstanding advances (borrowings) from the FHLB of Cincinnati under the activity-based stock ownership requirement. These requirements are subject to adjustment from time to time. On December 31, 2017, the Bank was in compliance with this requirement.

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Privacy and data security

Under the GLBA, federal banking regulators adopted rules limiting the ability of banks and other financial institutions to disclose nonpublic information about consumers to nonaffiliated third parties. The rules require disclosure of privacy policies to consumers and, in some circumstances, allow consumers to prevent disclosure of certain personal information to nonaffiliated third parties. The GLBA also directed federal regulators, including the FDIC, to prescribe standards for the security of consumer information. The Bank is subject to such standards, as well as standards for notifying clients in the event of a security breach.

Consumer laws and regulations

The Bank is also subject to other federal and state consumer laws and regulations that are designed to protect consumers in transactions with banks. While the list set forth below is not exhaustive, these laws and regulations include the Truth in Lending Act, the Truth in Savings Act, the Electronic Funds Transfer Act, the Expedited Funds Availability Act, the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the Fair Housing Act, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, the Fair and Accurate Transactions Act, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, the Military Lending Act, the Mortgage Disclosure Improvement Act, and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, among others. These laws and regulations mandate certain disclosure requirements and regulate the manner in which financial institutions must deal with consumers when offering consumer financial products and services.

Rulemaking authority for these and other consumer financial protection laws transferred from the prudential regulators to the CFPB on July 21, 2011. In some cases, regulators such as the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice also retain certain rulemaking or enforcement authority. The CFPB also has broad authority to prohibit unfair, deceptive and abusive acts and practices (“UDAAP”), and to investigate and penalize financial institutions that violate this prohibition. While the statutory language of the Dodd-Frank Act sets forth the standards for acts and practices that violate the prohibition on UDAAP, certain aspects of these standards are untested, and thus it is currently not possible to predict how the CFPB will exercise this authority. In addition, consumer compliance examination authority remains with the prudential regulators for smaller depository institutions ($10 billion or less in total assets).

The Dodd-Frank Act also authorized the CFPB to establish certain minimum standards for the origination of residential mortgages, including a determination of the borrower’s ability to repay. Under the Dodd-Frank Act, financial institutions may not make a residential mortgage loan unless they make a “reasonable and good faith determination” that the consumer has a “reasonable ability” to repay the loan. The act allows borrowers to raise certain defenses to foreclosure but provides a full or partial safe harbor from such defenses for loans that are “qualified mortgages.” On January 10, 2013, the CFPB published final rules to, among other things, specify the types of income and assets that may be considered in the ability-to-repay determination, the permissible sources for verification, and the required methods of calculating the loan’s monthly payments. Since then the CFPB made certain modifications to these rules. The rules extend the requirement that creditors verify and document a borrower’s “income and assets” to include all “information” that creditors rely on in determining repayment ability. The rules also provide further examples of third-party documents that may be relied on for such verification, such as government records and check-cashing or funds-transfer service receipts. The new rules were effective beginning on January 10, 2014. The rules also define “qualified mortgages,” imposing both underwriting standards—for example, a borrower’s debt-to-income ratio may not exceed 43%—and limits on the terms of their loans. Points and fees are subject to a relatively stringent cap, and the terms include a wide array of payments that may be made in the course of closing a loan. Certain loans, including interest-only loans and negative amortization loans, cannot be qualified mortgages.

Other Dodd-Frank Act reforms

Volcker Rule

The Volcker Rule generally prohibits a “banking entity” (which includes any insured depository institution, such as the Bank, or any affiliate or subsidiary of such depository institution, such as the Company) from (i) engaging in proprietary trading and (ii) acquiring or retaining any ownership interest in, sponsoring, or engaging in certain transactions with, a “covered fund”. Both the proprietary trading and covered fund-related prohibitions are subject to a number of exemptions and exclusions. The final regulations contain exemptions for, among others, market making, risk-mitigating hedging, underwriting, and trading in U.S. government and agency obligations and also permit certain ownership interests in certain types of funds to be retained. They also permit the offering and sponsoring of funds under certain conditions. In addition, the final regulations impose significant compliance and reporting obligations on banking entities.

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Banking entities were required to conform their proprietary trading activities and investments in and relationships with covered funds that were in place after December 31, 2013 by July 21, 2015. For those banking entities whose investments in and relationships with covered funds were in place prior to December 31, 2013 (“legacy covered funds”), the Volcker Rule conformance period was recently extended by the Federal Reserve to July 21, 2017 for such legacy covered funds. In addition, the Federal Reserve has also indicated its intention to grant two additional one-year extensions of the conformance period to July 21, 2017, for banking entities to conform ownership interests in and sponsorship of activities of collateralized loan obligations, or CLOs, that are backed in part by non-loan assets and that were in place as of December 31, 2013.

Executive compensation and corporate governance

The Dodd-Frank Act requires public companies to include, at least once every three years, a separate non-binding “say on pay” vote in their proxy statement by which shareholders may vote on the compensation of the public company’s named executive officers. In addition, if such public companies are involved in a merger, acquisition, or consolidation, or if they propose to sell or dispose of all or substantially all of their assets, shareholders have a right to an advisory vote on any golden parachute arrangements in connection with such transaction (frequently referred to as “say-on-golden parachute” vote). Other provisions of the act may impact our corporate governance. For instance, the act requires the SEC to adopt rules prohibiting the listing of any equity security of a company that does not have an independent compensation committee; and requiring all exchange-traded companies to adopt clawback policies for incentive compensation paid to executive officers in the event of accounting restatements based on material non-compliance with financial reporting requirements.

Future legislative developments

Various legislative acts are from time to time introduced in Congress and the Tennessee legislature. This legislation may change banking statutes and the environment in which we operate in substantial and unpredictable ways. We cannot determine the ultimate effect that potential legislation, if enacted, or implementing regulations and interpretations with respect thereto, would have our financial condition or results of operations.

Available Information

Our website address is www.firstbankonline.com. We file or furnish to the SEC Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, proxy statements and annual reports to shareholders, and from time to time, amendments to these documents and other documents called for by the SEC. The reports and other documents filed with or furnished to the SEC are available to investors on or through our website at investors.firstbankonline.com under the heading “Stock & Filings” and then under “SEC Filings.” These reports are available on our website free of charge as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file them with the SEC.

In addition to our website, you may read and copy any of the materials we file with the SEC at the SEC’s Public Reference Room at 100 F Street, NE, Washington, DC 20549. You may obtain information on the operation of the Public Reference Room by calling the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330. The SEC maintains an internet site that contains our reports, proxy and information statements and other information we file electronically with the SEC at www.sec.gov.

ITEM 1A - Risk Factors

Our operations and financial results are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited, to the material risks described below.  Many of these risks are beyond our control although efforts are made to manage those risks while simultaneously optimizing operational and financial results.  The occurrence of any of the following risks, as well as risks of which we are currently unaware or currently deem immaterial, could materially and adversely affect our assets, business, cash flows, condition (financial or otherwise), liquidity, prospects, results of operations and the trading price of our common stock. It is impossible to predict or identify all such factors and, as a result, you should not consider the following factors to be a complete discussion of the risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could materially and adversely affect our assets, business, cash flows, condition (financial or otherwise), liquidity, prospects, results of operations and the trading price of our common stock.

In addition, certain statements in the following risk factors constitute forward-looking statements. Please refer to the section entitled “Cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements” beginning on page 2 of this Annual Report.

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Risks related to our business

Our business concentration in Tennessee imposes risks resulting from any regional or local economic downturn affecting Tennessee.

We conduct our banking operations primarily in Tennessee. As of December 31, 2017, approximately 77% of our loans and approximately 88% of our deposits were made to borrowers or received from depositors who live and/or primarily conduct business in Tennessee. Therefore, our success will depend in large part upon the general economic conditions in this area, which we cannot predict with certainty.

This geographic concentration imposes risks from lack of geographic diversification, as adverse economic developments in Tennessee (including the Nashville MSA, our largest market), among other things, could affect the volume of loan originations, increase the level of nonperforming assets, increase the rate of foreclosure losses on loans, reduce the value of our loans and loan servicing portfolio, reduce the value of the collateral securing our loans and reduce the amount of our deposits. Any regional or local economic downturn that affects Tennessee or existing or prospective borrowers, depositors or property values in this area may affect us and our profitability more significantly and more adversely than our competitors whose operations are less geographically concentrated.

We face strong competition from financial services companies and other companies that offer banking services.

We conduct our banking operations primarily in Tennessee, with our largest market being the Nashville MSA, which is a highly competitive banking market. Many of our competitors offer the same, or a wider variety of, banking services within our market areas, and we compete with them for the same customers. These competitors include banks with nationwide operations, regional banks and community banks. In many instances these national and regional banks have greater resources than we do, and the smaller community banks may have stronger ties in local markets than we do, which may put us at a competitive disadvantage. We also face competition from many other types of financial institutions, including thrift institutions, finance companies, brokerage firms, insurance companies, credit unions, mortgage banks and other financial intermediaries. In addition, a number of out-of-state financial institutions have opened offices and solicit deposits in our market areas. Increased competition in our markets may result in reduced loans and deposits, as well as reduced net interest margin and profitability. If we are unable to attract and retain banking customers, we may be unable to continue to grow our loan and deposit portfolios, and our business, financial condition or results of operations may be adversely affected.

Further, a number of larger banks have recently entered the Nashville MSA, and we believe this trend will continue as banks look to gain a foothold in this growing market. This trend will likely result in greater competition in, and may impair our ability to grow our share of, our largest market.

If we do not effectively manage our asset quality and credit risk, we could experience loan losses.

Making any loan involves various risks, including risks inherent in dealing with individual borrowers, risks of nonpayment, risks resulting from uncertainties as to the future value of collateral and cash flows available to service debt, and risks resulting from changes in economic and market conditions. Our credit risk approval and monitoring procedures may fail to identify or reduce these credit risks, and they cannot completely eliminate all credit risks related to our loan portfolio. If the overall economic climate, including employment rates, real estate markets, interest rates and general economic growth, in the United States, generally, or Tennessee (particularly the Nashville MSA), specifically, experiences material disruption, our borrowers may experience difficulties in repaying their loans, the collateral we hold may decrease in value or become illiquid, and the levels of nonperforming loans, charge-offs and delinquencies could rise and require additional provisions for loan losses, which would cause our net income and return on equity to decrease.

Our provision and allowance for credit losses may not be adequate to cover actual credit losses.

We make various assumptions and judgments about the collectability of our loan and lease portfolio and utilize these assumptions and judgments when determining the provision and allowance for credit losses. The determination of the appropriate level of the provision for credit losses inherently involves a high degree of subjectivity and requires us to make significant estimates of current credit risks and future trends, all of which may undergo material changes. Deterioration in economic conditions affecting borrowers, new information regarding existing loans, identification of additional problem loans and other factors, both within and outside of our control, may require an increase in the amount reserved in the allowance for credit losses. In addition, bank regulatory agencies periodically review our provision and the total allowance for credit losses and may require an increase in the allowance for credit losses or future provisions for credit losses, based on judgments different than those of management. Any increases in the provision or allowance for credit losses will result in a decrease in our net income and, potentially, capital, and may have a material adverse effect on our financial condition or results of operations.

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Because a significant portion of our loan portfolio is comprised of real estate loans, negative changes in the economy affecting real estate values and liquidity could impair the value of collateral securing our real estate loans and result in loan and other losses.

As of December 31, 2017, approximately 73% of our loan portfolio was comprised of loans with real estate as a primary or secondary component of collateral. This includes collateral consisting of income producing and residential construction properties, which properties tend to be more sensitive to general economic conditions and downturns in real estate markets. As a result, adverse developments affecting real estate values in our market areas could increase the credit risk associated with our real estate loan portfolio. Adverse changes affecting real estate values and the liquidity of real estate in one or more of our markets could increase the credit risk associated with our loan portfolio and could result in losses that would adversely affect credit quality and our financial condition or results of operations. These adverse changes could significantly impair the value of property pledged as collateral to secure the loans and affect our ability to sell the collateral upon foreclosure without a loss or additional losses.  If real estate values decline, it is also more likely that we would be required to increase our allowance for loan losses. Thus, declines in the value of real estate collateral could adversely affect our financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.

We are exposed to higher credit risk by commercial real estate, commercial and industrial, and construction based lending.

Commercial real estate, commercial and industrial, and construction based lending usually involves higher credit risks than 1-4 family residential real estate lending. As of December 31, 2017, the following loan types accounted for the stated percentages of our loan portfolio: commercial real estate (both owner-occupied and non-owner occupied) - 33%; commercial and industrial - 23%; and construction - 14%. These loans expose us to greater credit risk than loans secured by other types of collateral because the collateral securing these loans is typically more difficult to liquidate. Additionally, these types of loans also often involve larger loan balances to a single borrower or groups of related borrowers. These higher credit risks are further heightened when the loans are concentrated in a small number of larger borrowers leading to relationship exposure.

Non-owner occupied commercial real estate loans may be affected to a greater extent than residential loans by adverse conditions in real estate markets or the economy because commercial real estate borrowers’ ability to repay their loans depends on successful development of their properties. These loans also involve greater risk because they generally are not fully amortizing over the loan period, and therefore have a balloon payment due at maturity. A borrower’s ability to make a balloon payment typically will depend on being able to either refinance the loan or sell the underlying property in a timely manner. In addition, banking regulators have been giving commercial real estate lending greater scrutiny, and may require banks with higher levels of commercial real estate loans to implement improved underwriting, internal controls, risk management policies and portfolio stress testing, as well as possibly higher levels of allowances for losses and capital levels as a result of commercial real estate lending growth and exposures.

Commercial and industrial loans and owner-occupied commercial real estate loans are typically based on the borrowers’ ability to repay the loans from the cash flow of their businesses. These loans may involve greater risk because the availability of funds to repay each loan depends substantially on the success of the business itself. In addition, the assets securing the loans depreciate over time, are difficult to appraise and liquidate, and fluctuate in value based on the success of the business.

Risk of loss on a construction loan depends largely upon whether our initial estimate of the property’s value at completion of construction or development equals or exceeds the cost of the property construction or development (including interest), the availability of permanent take-out financing and the builder’s ability to sell the property. During the construction or development phase, a number of factors can result in delays and cost overruns. If estimates of value are inaccurate or if actual construction costs exceed estimates, the value of the property securing the loan may be insufficient to ensure full repayment when completed through a permanent loan or by foreclosure on collateral.

Commercial real estate loans, commercial and industrial loans, and construction loans are more susceptible to a risk of loss during a downturn in the business cycle due to the vulnerability of these sectors during a downturn. Our underwriting, review and monitoring cannot eliminate all of the risks related to these loans.

We also make both secured and unsecured loans to our commercial customers. Unsecured loans generally involve a higher degree of risk of loss than secured loans because, without collateral, repayment is wholly dependent upon the success of the borrowers’ businesses. Because of this lack of collateral, we are limited in our ability to collect on defaulted unsecured loans. Further, the collateral that secures our secured commercial and industrial loans typically includes inventory, accounts receivable and equipment, which usually have a value that is insufficient to satisfy the loan without a loss if the business does not succeed.

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Our loan concentration in these sectors and their higher credit risk could lead to increased losses on these loans, which could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.

We are exposed to higher credit risk due to relationship exposure with a number of large borrowers.

As of December 31, 2017, we had 43 borrowing relationships in excess of $10 million which accounted for approximately 19% of our loan portfolio. While we are not overly dependent on any one of these relationships and while none of these large relationships have directly impacted our allowance for loan losses in the past, a deterioration of any of these large credits could require us to increase our allowance for loan losses or result in significant losses to us, which could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.

We make loans to small-to-medium sized businesses that may not have the resources to weather a downturn in the economy.

We make loans to privately-owned businesses, many of which are considered to be small to medium-sized businesses. Small to medium-sized businesses frequently have smaller market share than their competition, may be more vulnerable to economic downturns, often need substantial additional capital to expand or compete and may experience significant volatility in operating results. Any one or more of these factors may impair the borrower’s ability to repay a loan. In addition, the success of a small to medium-sized business often depends on the management talents and efforts of one or two persons or a small group of persons, and the death, disability or resignation of one or more of these persons could have a material adverse impact on the business and its ability to repay a loan. Economic downturns, a sustained decline in commodity prices and other events that negatively impact small businesses in our market areas could cause us to incur substantial credit losses that could negatively affect our results of operations or financial condition.

We may be materially and adversely affected by the creditworthiness and liquidity of other financial institutions.

Financial services institutions are interrelated as a result of trading, clearing, counterparty, or other relationships. We have exposure to many different industries and counterparties, and routinely execute transactions with counterparties in the financial services industry, including commercial banks, brokers and dealers, investment banks and other institutional customers. Many of these transactions expose us to credit risk in the event of a default by, or questions or concerns about the creditworthiness of, a counterparty or client, or concerns about the financial services industry generally. In addition, our credit risk may be exacerbated when the collateral held by us cannot be realized upon or is liquidated at prices not sufficient to recover the full amount of the credit or derivative exposure due to us. Any such losses could have a material adverse effect on us.

A lack of liquidity could adversely affect our operations and jeopardize our liquidity, business, financial condition or results of operations.

We rely on our ability to generate deposits and effectively manage the repayment and maturity schedules of our loans and investment securities to ensure that we have adequate liquidity to fund our operations. In addition to our traditional funding sources, we also may borrow funds from third-party lenders or issue equity or debt securities to investors. Our access to funding sources in amounts adequate to finance or capitalize our activities, or on terms that are acceptable to us, could be impaired by factors that affect us directly or the financial services industry or economy in general, such as disruptions in the financial markets or negative views and expectations about the prospects for the financial services industry. Our liquidity may also be adversely impacted if there is a decline in our mortgage revenues from higher prevailing interest rates. Any decline in available funding could adversely impact our ability to originate loans, invest in securities, meet our expenses, pay dividends to our shareholders, or to fulfill obligations such as repaying our borrowings or meeting deposit withdrawal demands, any of which could have a material adverse impact on our liquidity, business, financial condition or results of operations.

We may not be able to meet our unfunded credit commitments, or adequately reserve for losses associated with our unfunded credit commitments.

A commitment to extend credit is a formal agreement to lend funds to a client as long as there is no violation of any condition established under the agreement. The actual borrowing needs of our customers under these credit commitments have historically been lower than the contractual amount of the commitments. A significant portion of these commitments expire without being drawn upon. Because of the credit profile of our customers, we typically have a substantial amount of total unfunded credit commitments, which is not reflected on our balance sheet. Actual borrowing needs of our customers may exceed our expected funding requirements, especially during a challenging economic environment when our client companies may be more dependent on our credit commitments due to the lack of available credit elsewhere, the increasing costs of credit, or the limited availability of financings from other sources. Any failure to meet our unfunded credit commitments in accordance with the actual borrowing needs of our customers may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations or reputation.

Changes in interest rates could have an adverse impact on our results of operations and financial condition.

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Our earnings and financial condition are dependent to a large degree upon net interest income, which is the difference, or spread, between interest earned on loans, securities and other interest-earning assets and interest paid on deposits, borrowings and other interest-bearing liabilities. When market rates of interest change, the interest we receive on our assets and the interest we pay on our liabilities may fluctuate. This may cause decreases in our spread and may adversely affect our earnings and financial condition.

Interest rates are highly sensitive to many factors including, without limitation:

•The rate of inflation;

•Economic conditions;

•Federal monetary policies; and

•Stability of domestic and foreign markets.

Although we have implemented procedures we believe will reduce the potential effects of changes in interest rates on our net interest income, these procedures may not always be successful. Accordingly, changes in levels of market interest rates could materially and adversely affect our net interest income and our net interest margin, asset quality, loan and lease origination volume, liquidity or overall profitability.

If we are unable to grow our noninterest income, our growth prospects will be impaired.

Taking advantage of opportunities to develop new, and expand existing, streams of noninterest income, including our mortgage business, cash management services, investment services and interchange fees, is a part of our long-term growth strategy. If we are unsuccessful in our attempts to grow our noninterest income, especially in light of the expected decline in mortgage revenues, our long-term growth will be impaired. Further, focusing on these noninterest income streams may divert management’s attention and resources away from our core banking business, which could impair our core business, financial condition and operating results. We also derive a meaningful amount of our noninterest income from non-sufficient funds and overdraft fees, and such fees are subject to increased regulatory scrutiny, which could result in an erosion of such fees, and as a result, materially impair our future noninterest income.

Our recent results may not be indicative of our future results.

We may not be able to grow our business at the same rate of growth achieved in recent years or even grow our business at all.  In the future, we may not have the benefit of several factors that have been favorable to the growth of our business in past years, such as an interest rate environment where changes in rates occur at a relatively orderly and modest pace and the ability to find suitable expansion opportunities and acquisition targets. Numerous factors, such as weakening or deteriorating economic conditions, regulatory and legislative considerations, and competition may impede or restrict our ability to expand our market presence and build our franchise.  Even if we are able to grow our business, we may fail to build the infrastructure sufficient to support such growth, suffer loan losses in excess of reserves for such losses or experience other risks associated with growth.

Our future success is largely dependent upon our ability to successfully execute our business strategy.

Our future success, including our ability to achieve our growth and profitability goals, is dependent on the ability of our management team to execute on our long-term business strategy, which requires them to, among other things:

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Failure of management to execute our business strategy could negatively impact our business, growth prospects, financial condition or results of operations. Further, if we do not manage our growth effectively, our business, financial condition, results of operations and future prospects could be negatively affected, and we may not be able to continue to implement our business strategy and successfully conduct our operations.

We follow a relationship-based operating model, and our ability to maintain our reputation is critical to the success of our business.

We are a community bank, and our reputation is one of the most valuable components of our business. As such, we strive to conduct our business in a manner that enhances our reputation. This is done, in part, by recruiting, hiring and retaining bankers and other associates who share our core values of being an integral part of the communities we serve, delivering superior service to our customers and caring about our customers and associates. Further, maintaining our reputation also depends on our ability to protect our brand and associated intellectual property. If our reputation is negatively affected by the actions of our associates or otherwise, our business and, therefore, our operating results may be materially and adversely affected.

We depend on our executive officers and other key individuals to continue the implementation of our long-term business strategy and could be harmed by the loss of their services and our inability to make up for such loss with qualified replacements.

We believe that our continued growth and future success will depend in large part on the skills of our senior management team and our ability to motivate and retain these individuals and other key individuals. The loss of any member of our senior management team could reduce our ability to successfully implement our long-term business strategy, our business could suffer and the value of our common stock could be materially and adversely affected.

The success of our operating model is largely dependent on our ability to attract and retain talented bankers in each of our markets.

We strive to attract and retain talented bankers in each of our markets by fostering an entrepreneurial environment, empowering them with local decision making authority and providing them with sufficient infrastructure and resources to support their growth while also providing management with appropriate oversight. However, the competition for bankers in each of our markets is intense. We compete for talent with both smaller banks that may be able to offer bankers more responsibility, autonomy and local relationships and larger banks that may be able to offer bankers higher compensation, resources and support. As a result, we may not be able to effectively compete for talent across our markets. Further, our bankers may leave us to work for our competitors and, in some instances, may take important banking relationships with them. If we are unable to attract and retain talented bankers in our markets, our business, growth prospects or financial results could be materially and adversely affected.

We may fail to realize all of the anticipated benefits from previously acquired financial institutions or institutions that we may acquire in the future, or those benefits may take longer to realize than expected. We may also encounter significant difficulties in integrating financial institutions that we acquire.

Our ability to realize the anticipated benefits of any acquisition of other financial institutions, bank branches and/or mortgage operations in target markets will depend, to a large extent, on our ability to successfully integrate the acquired businesses. Such an acquisition strategy will involve significant risks, including the following:

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The integration and combination of the acquired businesses is a complex, costly and time-consuming process. As a result, we may be required to devote significant management attention and resources to integrating business practices and operations. The integration process may disrupt our business and the business of the acquired bank and, if implemented ineffectively, would restrict the full realization of the anticipated benefits of the acquisition. The failure to meet the challenges involved in integrating acquired businesses and to fully realize the anticipated benefits of acquisitions could adversely impact our business, financial condition or results of operations.

 Our lending limit may restrict our growth and prevent us from effectively implementing our business strategy.

We are limited by law in the amount we can loan in the aggregate to a single borrower or related borrowers by the amount of our capital. Tennessee’s legal lending limit is intended to prevent one person or a relatively small and economically related group of persons from borrowing an unduly large amount of a bank’s funds. It is also intended to safeguard a bank’s depositors by diversifying the risk of loan losses among a relatively large number of creditworthy borrowers engaged in various types of businesses. Based upon our capitalization at December 31, 2017, our legal lending limits were approximately $66 million (15% of capital and surplus) and $111 million (25% of capital and surplus). Therefore, based upon our current capital levels, the amount we may lend may be significantly less than that of many of our larger competitors and may discourage potential borrowers who have credit needs in excess of our lending limit from doing business with us. We may accommodate larger loans by selling participations in those loans to other financial institutions, but this strategy may not always be available. In addition to these legally imposed lending limits, we also employ appropriate limits on our overall loan portfolio and requirements with respect to certain types of lending and individual lending relationships. If we are unable to compete effectively for loans from our target customers, we may not be able to effectively implement our business strategy, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations or prospects.

Our funding sources may prove insufficient to support our future growth.

Deposits, cash flows from operations (including from our mortgage business) and investment securities for sale are the primary sources of funds for our lending activities and general business purposes. However, from time to time we also obtain advances from the Federal Home Loan Bank, purchase federal funds, engage in overnight borrowing from the Federal Reserve and correspondent banks and sell loans. While we believe our current funding sources to be adequate, our future growth may be severely constrained if we are unable to maintain our access to funding or if adequate financing is not available on acceptable terms to accommodate future growth, which could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.

The performance of our investment securities portfolio is subject to fluctuation due to changes in interest rates and market conditions, including credit deterioration of the issuers of individual securities.

Changes in interest rates may negatively affect both the returns on and market value of our investment securities. Interest rate volatility can reduce unrealized gains or increase unrealized losses in our portfolio. Interest rates are highly sensitive to many factors including monetary policies, domestic and international economic and political issues, and other factors beyond our control. Additionally, actual investment income and cash flows from investment securities that carry prepayment risk, such as mortgage-backed securities and callable securities, may materially differ from those anticipated at the time of investment or subsequently as a result of changes in interest rates and market conditions. These occurrences could have a material adverse effect on our net interest income or our results of operations.

Decreased residential mortgage origination volume and pricing decisions of competitors may adversely affect our profitability.

Our mortgage operation originates and sells residential mortgage loans, services residential mortgage loans, and provides third-party origination services to other community banks and mortgage companies. Changes in interest rates, housing prices, applicable government regulations and pricing decisions by our loan competitors may adversely affect demand for our residential mortgage loan products, the revenue realized on the sale of loans, the revenues received from servicing such loans for others and, ultimately, reduce our net income. New regulations, increased regulatory reviews, and/or changes in the structure of the secondary mortgage markets which we utilize to sell mortgage loans may increase costs and make it more difficult to operate a residential mortgage origination business. Our revenue from the mortgage banking

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business was $116.9 million in 2017. This revenue could significantly decline in future periods if interest rates were to continue rising and the other risks highlighted in this paragraph were realized, which may adversely affect our profitability.

Our mortgage banking profitability could significantly decline if we are not able to originate and resell a high volume of mortgage loans and securities.

Mortgage production, especially refinancing activity, declines in rising interest rate environments. Our mortgage origination volume could be materially and adversely affected by rising interest rates. We expect to see declining origination volume in 2018 across the industry.  Moreover, when interest rates increase further, there can be no assurance that our mortgage production will continue at current levels. Further, nearly half of our mortgages are originated through our consumer direct internet delivery channel, which targets national customers. As a result, loan originations through this channel are particularly susceptible to the interest rate environment and the national housing market. Because we sell a substantial portion of the mortgage loans we originate, the profitability of our mortgage banking business also depends in large part on our ability to aggregate a high volume of loans and sell them in the secondary market at a gain. In fact, as rates rise, we expect increasing industry-wide competitive pressures related to changing market conditions to reduce our pricing margins and mortgage revenues generally. If our level of mortgage production declines, our continued profitability will depend upon our ability to reduce our costs commensurate with the reduction of revenue from our mortgage operations. If we are unable to do so, our continued profitability may be materially and adversely affected.

We may incur costs, liabilities, fines and other sanctions if we fail to satisfy our mortgage loan servicing obligations.

We act as servicer for approximately $6.5 billion of mortgage loans owned by third parties as of December 31, 2017. As a servicer for those loans, we have certain contractual obligations to third parties. If we commit a material breach of our obligations as servicer, we may be subject to termination if the breach is not cured within a specified period of time following notice, causing us to lose servicing income. For certain investors and/or transactions, we may be contractually obligated to repurchase a mortgage loan or reimburse the investor for credit losses incurred on the loan as a remedy for origination errors with respect to the loan. If we have increased repurchase obligations because of claims that we did not satisfy our obligations as a servicer, or if we have increased loss severity on such repurchases, we may have a significant reduction to net servicing income within our mortgage banking noninterest income. In addition, we may be subject to fines and other sanctions imposed by federal or state regulators as a result of actual or perceived deficiencies in our foreclosure practices. Any of these actions may harm our reputation or negatively affect our residential lending or servicing business and, as a result, our profitability.

We may be required to repurchase mortgage loans or indemnify buyers against losses in some circumstances.

In 2017, we sold nearly all of the $6.3 billion of mortgage loans held for sale that we originated and purchased. When mortgage loans are sold, whether as whole loans or pursuant to a securitization, we are required to make customary representations and warranties to purchasers, guarantors and insurers about the mortgage loans and the manner in which they were originated. We may be required to repurchase or substitute mortgage loans, or indemnify buyers against losses, in the event we breach certain representations or warranties in connection with the sale of such loans. If repurchase and indemnity demands increase, are valid claims and are in excess of our provision for potential losses, our liquidity, results of operations or financial condition may be materially and adversely affected.

We depend on third-party service providers in the operation of our business.

We depend on a third-party service providers in the operation of our business.  In particular, we have engaged one such third party, Cenlar, to provide servicing of our mortgage loan business. In the event that this service provider, or any other third-party service provider that we may use in the future, fails to perform its servicing duties or performs those duties inadequately, we could experience a temporary interruption in collecting principal and interest on mortgage loans, sustain credit losses on our loans or incur additional costs to obtain a replacement servicer. There can be no assurance that a replacement servicer could be retained in a timely manner or at similar rates. Further, our servicing rights could be terminated or we may be required to repurchase mortgage loans or reimburse investors as a result of such failures of our third-party service providers, any of which could adversely affect our reputation, results of operations or financial condition.

We also receive core systems processing, essential web hosting and other Internet systems, deposit processing and other processing services from third-party service providers. If these third-party service providers experience difficulties, or terminate their services, and we are unable to replace them with other service providers, particularly on a timely basis, our operations could be interrupted. If an interruption were to continue for a significant period of time, our business, financial condition or results of operations could be adversely affected, perhaps materially. Even if we are able to replace third-

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party service providers, it may be at a higher cost to us, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Our risk management framework may not be effective in mitigating risks and/or losses to us.

Our risk management framework is comprised of various processes, systems and strategies, and is designed to manage the types of risk to which we are subject, including, among others, credit, market, liquidity, interest rate and compliance risks. Our framework also includes financial or other modeling methodologies that involve management assumptions and judgment. Our risk management framework may not be effective under all circumstances and may not adequately mitigate any risk or loss to us. If our framework is not effective, we could suffer unexpected losses and our business, financial condition, results of operations or prospects could be materially and adversely affected.

System failure or breaches of our network security, including as a result of cyber-attacks or data security breaches, could subject us to increased operating costs as well as litigation and other liabilities.

The computer systems and network infrastructure we use may be vulnerable to physical theft, fire, power loss, telecommunications failure or a similar catastrophic event, as well as security breaches, denial of service attacks, viruses, worms and other disruptive problems caused by hackers. Any damage or failure that causes breakdowns or disruptions in our client relationship management, general ledger, deposit, loan and other systems could damage our reputation, result in a loss of client business, subject us to additional regulatory scrutiny, or expose us to civil litigation and possible financial liability, any of which could have a material adverse effect on us.

Computer break-ins, phishing and other disruptions could also jeopardize the security of information stored in and transmitted through our computer systems and network infrastructure. Information security risks have generally increased in recent years in part because of the proliferation of new technologies, the use of the internet and telecommunications technologies to conduct financial transactions, and the increased sophistication and activities of organized crime, hackers, terrorists, and other external parties. Our operations rely on the secure processing, transmission and storage of confidential information in our computer systems and networks. Although we believe we have robust information security procedures and controls, our technologies, systems, networks, and our customers’ devices may become the target of cyber-attacks or information security breaches that could result in the unauthorized release, gathering, monitoring, misuse, loss or destruction of our or our customers’ confidential, proprietary and other information, or otherwise disrupt our or our customers’ business operations. As cyber threats continue to evolve, we may be required to expend significant additional resources to continue to modify or enhance our protective measures or to investigate and remediate any information security vulnerabilities.

We are under continuous threat of loss due to hacking and cyber-attacks especially as we continue to expand client capabilities to utilize internet and other remote channels to transact business. While we are not aware of any successful hacking or cyber-attacks into our computer or information technology systems, there can be no assurance that we will not be the victim of successful hacking or cyber-attacks in the future that could cause us to suffer material losses. The occurrence of any cyber-attack or information security breach could result in significant potential liabilities to customers and other third parties, reputational damage, the disruption of our operations and regulatory concerns, all of which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations.

The financial services industry is undergoing rapid technological changes and, we may not have the resources to implement new technology to stay current with these changes.

The financial services industry is undergoing rapid technological changes with frequent introductions of new technology-driven products and services. In addition to better serving customers, the effective use of technology increases efficiency and enables financial institutions to reduce costs. Our future success will depend in part upon our ability to address the needs of our customers by using technology to provide products and services that will satisfy client demands for convenience as well as to provide secure electronic environments as we continue to grow and expand our market area. Many of our larger competitors have substantially greater resources to invest, and have invested significantly more than us, in technological improvements. As a result, they may be able to offer additional or more convenient products compared to those that we will be able to provide, which would put us at a competitive disadvantage. Accordingly, we may not be able to effectively implement new technology-driven products and services or be successful in marketing such products and services to our customers, which could impair our growth and profitability.

We are subject to certain operational risks, including, but not limited to, client or employee fraud.

Employee errors and employee and client misconduct could subject us to financial losses or regulatory sanctions and seriously harm our reputation. Misconduct by our employees could include hiding unauthorized activities from us, improper or unauthorized activities on behalf of our customers or improper use of confidential information. It is not always possible to prevent employee errors and misconduct, and the precautions we take to prevent and detect this activity may

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not be effective in all cases. Employee errors could also subject us to financial claims for negligence. We maintain a system of internal controls and insurance coverage to mitigate against these operational risks. If our internal controls fail to prevent or detect an occurrence, or if any resulting loss is not insured or exceeds applicable insurance limits, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

In addition, we rely heavily upon information supplied by third parties, including the information contained in credit applications, property appraisals, title information, equipment pricing and valuation and employment and income documentation, in deciding which loans we will originate, as well as the terms of those loans. If any of the information upon which we rely is misrepresented, either fraudulently or inadvertently, and the misrepresentation is not detected prior to asset funding, the value of the asset may be significantly lower than expected, or we may fund a loan that we would not have funded or on terms we would not have extended.

We may need to raise additional capital in the future.

We are required to meet certain regulatory capital requirements and maintain sufficient liquidity. We may need to raise additional capital in the future to provide us with sufficient capital resources and liquidity to meet our commitments and business needs, which could include the possibility of financing acquisitions. Our ability to raise additional capital depends on conditions in the capital markets, economic conditions and a number of other factors, including investor perceptions regarding the banking industry, market conditions, governmental activities, and our financial condition and performance. Accordingly, we may be unable to raise additional capital if needed or on terms acceptable to us. Further, such additional capital could result in dilution to our existing shareholders. If we fail to maintain capital to meet regulatory requirements, our financial condition, liquidity, results of operations, as well as our ability to maintain compliance with regulatory capital requirements, would be materially and adversely affected.

Our FDIC deposit insurance premiums and assessments may increase.

Our deposits are insured by the FDIC up to legal limits and, accordingly, subjects us to the payment of FDIC deposit insurance premiums and assessments. High levels of bank failures since the financial crisis and increases in the statutory deposit insurance limits have increased resolution costs to the FDIC and put significant pressure on the Deposit Insurance Fund. In order to maintain a strong funding position and restore the reserve ratios of the Deposit Insurance Fund following the financial crisis, the FDIC increased deposit insurance assessment rates and charged special assessments to all FDIC-insured financial institutions. Further increases in assessment rates or special assessments may occur in the future, especially if there are significant additional failures of financial institutions. Any future special assessments, increases in assessment rates or required prepayments in FDIC insurance premiums could reduce our profitability or limit our ability to pursue certain business opportunities, which could have a material adverse effect on our assets, business, cash flow, condition (financial or otherwise), liquidity, prospects or results of operations.

Our financial condition may be affected negatively by the costs of litigation.

We may be involved from time to time in a variety of litigation, investigations or similar matters arising out of our business. From time to time, and particularly during periods of economic stress, customers may make claims or otherwise take legal action pertaining to performance of our responsibilities. These claims are often referred to as “lender liability” claims. Whether customer claims and legal action related to the performance of our responsibilities are founded or unfounded, if such claims and legal actions are not resolved in a favorable manner, they may result in significant financial liability and/or adversely affect our market perception, products and services, as well as potentially affecting customer demand for those products and services. In many cases, we may seek reimbursement from our insurance carriers to cover such costs and expenses. Our insurance may not cover all claims that may be asserted against us, and any claims asserted against us, regardless of merit or eventual outcome, may harm our reputation. Should the ultimate judgments or settlements in any litigation or investigation significantly exceed our insurance coverage, they could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Prior to our initial public offering, we were treated as an S-corporation, and claims of taxing authorities or our former sole shareholder related to our prior status as an S-corporation, could harm us.

Prior to our initial public offering, we were an S-corporation for U.S. federal income tax purposes. While we were an S-corporation, Mr. Ayers, our sole shareholder at the time, was taxed on our income. Following our initial public offering in 2016, our status as an S-corporation was terminated and we became a “C-corporation” under the provisions of the Internal Revenue Code. If the unaudited, open tax years in which we were an S-corporation are audited by the Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”) and we are determined not to have qualified for, or to have violated, our S-corporation status, we will be obligated to pay back tax, interest and penalties. The amounts that we would be obligated to pay could include tax on all of our taxable income while we were an S-corporation. Any such claims could result in additional costs to us and could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations or financial condition.

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In addition, in the event of an adjustment to our reported taxable income for periods prior to termination of our S-corporation status, it is possible that Mr. Ayers would be liable for additional income taxes for those prior periods. Therefore, we entered into a tax sharing agreement with Mr. Ayers. Pursuant to this agreement, upon our filing any tax return (amended or otherwise), in the event of any restatement of our taxable income or pursuant to a determination by, or a settlement with, a taxing authority, for any period during which we were an S-corporation, we may be required to make a payment to Mr. Ayers in an amount equal to Mr. Ayers’ incremental tax liability. In addition, we have agreed to indemnify Mr. Ayers with respect to unpaid income tax liabilities to the extent that such unpaid income tax liabilities are attributable to an adjustment to our taxable income for any period after our S-corporation status terminates. In both cases the amount of the payment will be based on the assumption that Mr. Ayers is taxed at the highest rate applicable to individuals for the relevant periods. We will also indemnify Mr. Ayers for any interest, penalties, losses, costs or expenses arising out of any claim under the agreement. Any such payments to or on behalf of Mr. Ayers would result in additional costs to us and could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations or financial condition.

We could be subject to environmental risks and associated costs on our other real estate owned assets.

A significant portion of our loan portfolio is comprised of loans collateralized by real estate. There is a risk that hazardous or toxic waste could be discovered on the properties that secure our loans. If we acquire such properties as a result of foreclosure, we could be held responsible for the cost of cleaning up or removing this waste, and this cost could exceed the value of the underlying properties and materially and adversely affect us.

Risks related to our regulatory environment

The Dodd-Frank Act and related rules and regulations may adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations.

The Dodd-Frank Act contains a variety of far-reaching changes and reforms for the financial services industry and directs federal regulatory agencies to study the effects of, and issue implementing regulations for, these reforms. Many of the provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act could have a direct effect on our performance and, in some cases, impact our ability to conduct business. Examples of these provisions include, but are not limited to:

Many of these provisions have already been the subject of proposed and final rules by regulatory authorities. Many other provisions, however, remain subject to regulatory rulemaking and implementation, the effects of which are not yet known. The provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act and any rules adopted to implement those provisions as well as any additional legislative or regulatory changes may impact the profitability of our business, require that we change certain of our business practices, materially affect our business model or affect retention of key personnel, require us to raise additional capital and expose us to additional costs (including increased compliance costs). These and other changes may also require us to invest significant management attention and resources to make any necessary changes and may adversely affect our ability to conduct our business as previously conducted or our financial condition or results of operations.  

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Monetary policies and economic factors may limit our ability to attract deposits or make loans.

The monetary policies of federal regulatory authorities, particularly the Federal Reserve, and economic conditions in our service area and the United States generally, affect our ability to attract deposits and extend loans. We cannot predict either the nature or timing of any changes in these monetary policies and economic conditions, including the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policies, or their impact on our financial performance. Adverse conditions in the economic environment could also lead to a potential decline in deposits and demand for loans, which could have a material and adverse effect on our financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.

As the parent company of FirstBank, the Federal Reserve may require us to commit capital resources to support the Bank.

The Federal Reserve requires us to act as a source of strength to the Bank and to commit capital and financial resources to support the Bank. This support may be required at times when we might otherwise determine not to provide it. In addition, if we commit to a federal bank regulator that we will maintain the capital of the Bank, whether in response to the Federal Reserve’s invoking its source-of-strength authority or in response to other regulatory measures, that commitment will be assumed by a bankruptcy trustee and, as a result, the Bank will be entitled to priority payment in respect of that commitment, ahead of our other creditors. Thus, any borrowing that must be done by us in order to support the Bank may adversely impact our cash flow, financial condition, results of operations or prospects.

Federal and state regulators periodically examine our business and may require us to remediate adverse examination findings or may take enforcement action against us.

The Federal Reserve, the FDIC and the TDFI periodically examine our business, including our compliance with laws and regulations. If, as a result of an examination, the Federal Reserve or the TDFI were to determine that our financial condition, capital resources, asset quality, earnings prospects, management, liquidity or other aspects of any of our operations had become unsatisfactory, or that we were in violation of any law or regulation, they may take a number of different remedial actions as they deem appropriate. These actions may include the power to require us to remediate any such adverse examination findings.

In addition, these agencies have the power to take enforcement action against us to enjoin “unsafe or unsound” practices, to require affirmative action to correct any conditions resulting from any violation of law or regulation or unsafe or unsound practice, to issue an administrative order that can be judicially enforced, to direct an increase in our capital, to direct the sale of subsidiaries or other assets, to limit dividends and distributions, to restrict our growth, to assess civil monetary penalties against us or our officers or directors, to remove officers and directors or, if it is concluded that such conditions cannot be corrected or there is an imminent risk of loss to depositors, to terminate our deposit insurance and place us into receivership or conservatorship. Any regulatory enforcement action against us could have a material adverse effect on our assets, business, cash flow, condition (financial or otherwise), liquidity, prospects or results of operations.

Federal, state and local consumer lending laws may restrict our ability to originate certain mortgage loans or increase our risk of liability with respect to such loans and could increase our cost of doing business.

Federal, state and local laws and regulations have been adopted that are intended to eliminate certain lending practices considered “predatory.” The origination of loans with certain terms and conditions and that otherwise meet the definition of a “qualified mortgage” may protect us from liability to a borrower for failing to make the necessary determinations. In either case, we may find it necessary to tighten our mortgage loan underwriting standards in response to applicable regulations, which may constrain our ability to make loans consistent with our business strategies. It is our policy not to make predatory loans and to determine borrowers’ ability to repay, but the law and related rules create the potential for increased liability with respect to our lending and loan investment activities. They increase our cost of doing business and, ultimately, may prevent us from making certain loans and cause us to reduce the average percentage rate or the points and fees on loans that we do make, which in turn could have a material adverse effect on our business, cash flow, condition (financial or otherwise), liquidity, prospects or results of operations.

We are subject to numerous fair lending laws designed to protect consumers and failure to comply with these laws could lead to a wide variety of sanctions.

The Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the Fair Housing Act and other fair lending laws and regulations prohibit discriminatory lending practices by financial institutions. The U.S. Department of Justice, federal banking agencies and other federal agencies are responsible for enforcing these laws and regulations. A successful regulatory challenge to an institution’s compliance with fair lending laws and regulations could result in a wide variety of sanctions, including damages and civil money penalties, injunctive relief, restrictions on mergers and acquisitions, restrictions on expansion and restrictions on entering new lines of business. Private parties may also have the ability to challenge an institution’s performance under

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fair lending laws in private class action litigation. Such actions could have a material adverse effect on our assets, business, cash flow, condition (financial or otherwise), liquidity, prospects or results of operations.

We could face a risk of noncompliance and enforcement action with the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 (the “Bank Secrecy Act”) and other anti-money laundering statutes and regulations.

The Bank Secrecy Act, the USA PATRIOT Act and other laws and regulations require financial institutions, among other duties, to institute and maintain effective anti-money laundering programs and file suspicious activity and currency transaction reports as appropriate. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, established by the U.S. Department of the Treasury to administer the Bank Secrecy Act, is authorized to impose significant civil money penalties for violations of those requirements and engages in coordinated enforcement efforts with the individual federal banking regulators, as well as the U.S. Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration and IRS. There is also increased scrutiny of compliance with the rules enforced by the Office of Foreign Assets Control related to U.S. sanctions regimes. If our policies, procedures and systems are deemed deficient or the policies, procedures and systems of the financial institutions that we have already acquired or may acquire in the future are deficient, we would be subject to liability, including fines and regulatory actions such as restrictions on our ability to pay dividends and the necessity to obtain regulatory approvals to proceed with certain aspects of our business plan, including our acquisition plans, which would negatively impact our business, financial condition or results of operations. Failure to maintain and implement adequate programs to combat money laundering and terrorist financing could also have serious reputational consequences for us, which could in turn have a material adverse effect on our business.

Risks related to our common stock

We are controlled by James W. Ayers, whose interests in our business may be different than our other shareholders, and, as a “controlled company” within the meaning of the rules of NYSE, our other shareholders will not have the same protections afforded to shareholders of companies that are subject to certain corporate governance requirements.

Mr. Ayers, our Executive Chairman, currently owns approximately 56.3% of our common stock. Further, pursuant to the shareholder’s agreement that was entered into with Mr. Ayers in connection with our initial public offering, Mr. Ayers has the right to designate up to a majority of our board of directors. As a result, Mr. Ayers or his nominees to our board of directors will have the ability to control the appointment of our management, the entering into of mergers, material acquisitions and dispositions and other extraordinary transactions and to influence amendments to our charter, bylaws and other corporate governance documents. So long as Mr. Ayers continues to own a majority of our common stock, he will have the ability to control the vote in any election of directors and will have the ability to prevent any transaction that requires shareholder approval regardless of whether others believe the transaction is in our best interests. In any of these matters, the interests of Mr. Ayers may differ from or conflict with the interests of our other shareholders. Moreover, this concentration of stock ownership may also adversely affect the trading price for our common stock to the extent investors perceive disadvantages in owning stock of a company with a controlling shareholder.

In addition, because Mr. Ayers controls a majority of the voting power of our outstanding common stock, we are a “controlled company” within the meaning of the corporate governance standards of NYSE. Under these rules, a company of which more than 50% of the voting power is held by an individual, group or another company is a “controlled company” and may elect not to comply with certain corporate governance requirements, including the requirements that a majority of the board of directors consist of independent directors and the requirements that the executive compensation committee and nominating and corporate governance committee each be comprised entirely of independent directors.  We may take advantage of certain of these exemptions for as long as we continue to qualify as a “controlled company,” and, historically, we have relied on the exemption that we have a nominating and corporate governance committee. While exempt, we may also choose not to have a majority of independent directors or a compensation committee that consists entirely of independent directors. Accordingly, our shareholders may not have the same protections afforded to shareholders of companies that are subject to all of the corporate governance requirements of NYSE.

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Our corporate organization documents contain certain provisions that could have an anti-takeover effect and may delay, make more difficult or prevent an attempted acquisition of us that our shareholders may favor.

Our governing documents and certain agreements to which we are a party contain provisions that make a change-in-control difficult to accomplish, and may discourage a potential acquirer. These include a provision that directors cannot be removed except for cause and a provision that requires the affirmative vote of eighty percent (80%) of the shares outstanding to amend certain provisions of our charter. These anti-takeover provisions may have an adverse effect on the market for our common stock.

We have the ability to incur debt and pledge our assets, including our stock in the Bank, to secure that debt.

Absent special and unusual circumstances, a holder of any indebtedness for borrowed money has rights that are superior to those of holders of any common stock. For example, interest must be paid to the lender before dividends can be paid to any shareholders, and loans must be paid off before any assets can be distributed to any shareholders if we were to liquidate. Further, we would have to make principal and interest payments on our indebtedness, which could reduce our profitability or result in net losses on a consolidated basis even if the Bank were profitable.

The price of our common stock could be volatile.

The market price of our common stock may be volatile and could be subject to wide fluctuations in price in response to various factors, some of which are beyond our control. In addition, if the market for stocks in our industry, or the stock market in general, experiences a loss of investor confidence, the trading price of our common stock could decline for reasons unrelated to our business, financial condition or results of operations. If any of the foregoing occurs, it could cause our stock price to fall and may expose us to lawsuits that, even if unsuccessful, could be costly to defend and a distraction to management which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Future sales of our common stock or securities convertible into our common stock may dilute our shareholders’ ownership in us and may adversely affect us or the market price of our common stock.

We are generally not restricted from issuing additional shares of our common stock up to the authorized number of shares set forth in our charter. We may issue additional shares of our common stock or securities convertible into our common stock in the future pursuant to current or future employee stock option plans, employee stock grants, upon exercise of warrants or in connection with future acquisitions or financings. In addition, Mr. Ayers has registration rights that allow him to sell additional shares of common stock in subsequent offerings. We cannot predict the size of any such future issuances or the effect, if any, that any such future issuances will have on the trading price of our common stock.  Any such future issuances of shares of our common stock or securities convertible into common stock may have a dilutive effect on the holders of our common stock and could have a material negative effect on the trading price of our common stock.

Future sales of our common stock in the public market could lower our share price, and any additional capital raised by us through the sale of equity or convertible debt securities may dilute our shareholders ownership in us and may adversely affect us or the market price of our common stock.

We or Mr. Ayers, may sell additional shares of common stock in subsequent public offerings. We may also issue additional shares of common stock or convertible securities to finance future acquisitions. We cannot predict the size of future issuances of our common stock or the effect, if any, that future issuances and sales of our common stock will have on the market price of our common stock. Sales of substantial amounts of our common stock (including sales that may occur pursuant to registration rights and shares that may be issued in connection with acquisitions), or the perception that such sales could occur, may adversely affect prevailing market prices for our common stock.

Applicable laws and regulations restrict both the ability of the Bank to pay dividends to us and our ability to pay dividends to our shareholders.

We and the Bank are subject to various regulatory restrictions relating to the payment of dividends. In addition, the Federal Reserve has the authority to prohibit bank holding companies from engaging in unsafe or unsound practices in conducting their business. These federal and state laws, regulations and policies are described in greater detail in “Business: Supervision and regulation: Bank regulation: Bank dividends” and “Business: Supervision and regulation: Holding company regulation: Restriction on bank holding company dividends,” and generally consider previous results and net income, capital needs, asset quality, existence of enforcement or remediation proceedings, and overall financial condition in determining whether a dividend payment is appropriate. For the foreseeable future, the majority, if not all, of our revenue will be from any dividends paid to us by the Bank. Accordingly, our ability to pay dividends also depends on the ability of the Bank to pay dividends to us. Further, the present and future dividend policy of the Bank is subject to the discretion of its board of directors. We cannot guarantee that we or the Bank will be permitted by financial condition or

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applicable regulatory restrictions to pay dividends, that the board of directors of the Bank will elect to pay dividends to us, or the timing or amount of any dividend actually paid. See “Dividend policy.” If we do not pay dividends, market perceptions of our common stock may be adversely affected, which could in turn create downward pressure on our stock price.

We identified a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting related to reconciliations of our mortgage loans held for sale and related clearing accounts in the year ended December 31, 2016 and if we are unable to establish and maintain effective internal controls in accordance with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (the “Sarbanes-Oxley Act”) it could have a material adverse effect on our business and stock price.

We are required to comply with the SEC’s rules implementing Section 302 and 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, that require management to certify financial and other information in our quarterly and annual reports and, beginning with this Annual Report on Form 10-K, provide an annual management report on the effectiveness of control over financial reporting. Pursuant to the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (the “JOBS Act”), our independent registered public accounting firm will not be required to attest to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting until the later of the year following our first annual report required to be filed with the SEC or the date we are no longer an emerging growth company, which may be up to five full fiscal years following our initial public offering.

In connection with the preparation of our consolidated financial statements in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016, our management determined that as of December 31, 2016, we had a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting resulting from deficiencies around the recording of mortgage banking transactions and reconciliations of mortgage loans held for sale and related clearing accounts on a timely basis. A “material weakness” is a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of our annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis.  Specifically, we did not have effective processes and procedures in place to ensure that all transactions involving the origination, purchase, transfer or sales of our mortgage loans held for sale were properly recorded and reflected on our financial statements and, as a result, failed to properly record certain transactions in the proper interim periods in 2016. While this deficiency did not result in a restatement of any previously reported interim consolidated financial statements for 2016, our management concluded there was a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the Company’s annual or interim financial statements might not be prevented or detected on a timely basis. See “Controls and Procedures” included in Item 9A of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016 for a further discussion of this material weakness. Our management believes that the conversion to the system, which was completed during 2016, and the revised policies and procedures for reconciling applicable accounts put in place during 2016 have been sufficient to remediate this material weakness. As of December 31, 2017, management considers the material weakness to be remediated based on their evaluation of the controls.

While we believe that we have taken appropriate steps to remediate the material weakness, we cannot be certain that other material weaknesses and control deficiencies will not be discovered in the future.  If additional material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting are discovered or occur in the future, our consolidated financial statements may contain material misstatements and we could be required to restate our financial results. In addition, if additional material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting are discovered or occur in the future, or if we are unable to produce accurate and timely financial statements, our stock price may be adversely affected and we may be unable to maintain compliance with applicable stock exchange listing requirements.

We are an emerging growth company, and we cannot be certain if the reduced disclosure requirements applicable to emerging growth companies will make our common stock less attractive to investors.

We are an “emerging growth company,” as defined in the JOBS Act, and we intend to take advantage of certain exemptions from various regulatory and reporting requirements that are applicable to public companies that are emerging growth companies, including, but not limited to, exemptions from being required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and proxy statements, and exemptions from the requirements of holding a nonbinding advisory vote on executive compensation and shareholder approval of any golden parachute payments not previously approved. In addition, even if we comply with the greater obligations of public companies that are not emerging growth companies, we may avail ourselves of the reduced requirements applicable to emerging growth companies from time to time in the future, so long as we are an emerging growth company. We will remain an emerging growth company for up to five years, though we will cease to be an emerging growth company earlier if we have more than $1 billion in annual gross revenues, have more than $700 million in market value of our common stock held by non-affiliates, or issue more than $1 billion of non-convertible debt in a three-year period. Investors and securities analysts may find it more difficult to evaluate our common

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stock because we will rely on one or more of these exemptions and, as a result, investor confidence or the market price of our common stock may be materially and adversely affected.

Securities that we issue, including our common stock, are not FDIC insured.

Securities that we issue, including our common stock, are not savings or deposit accounts or other obligations of any bank, insured by the FDIC, any other governmental agency or instrumentality, or any private insurer, and are subject to investment risk, including the possible loss of our shareholders’ investments.

ITEM 1B - Unresolved Staff Comments

None.

ITEM 2 - Properties

Our principal executive offices and FirstBank’s main office are located at 211 Commerce Street, Suite 300, Nashville, Tennessee 37201. We currently operate 56 full-service bank branches and 9 other banking locations throughout our geographic market areas as well as 18 mortgage offices throughout the southeastern United States. We have banking locations in the metropolitan markets of Nashville, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Memphis, Jackson (TN) and Huntsville (AL) in addition to 12 community markets. See “ITEM 1. Business – Our Markets” for more detail. We own 44 of these banking locations and lease our other banking locations, nearly all of our mortgage offices and our principal executive office. We believe that our offices and banking locations are in good condition, are suitable to our needs and, for the most part, are relatively new or refurbished.

ITEM 3 - Legal Proceedings

Various legal proceedings to which FB Financial Corporation or a subsidiary of FB Financial Corporation is party arise from time to time in the normal course of business. As of the date hereof, there are no material pending legal proceedings to which FB Financial Corporation or any of its subsidiaries is a party or of which any of its or its subsidiaries' assets or properties are subject.

ITEM 4 - Mine Safety Disclosures

Not applicable.

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PART II

ITEM 5. Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities.

Market Information and Holders of Record

FB Financial Corporation's common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "FBK" and has traded on that market since September 16, 2016. Prior to that time, there was no established public trading market for our stock.

The following table shows the high and low sales price information for the Company’s common stock for each full quarter in 2017 and 2016 as reported on the New York Stock Exchange.

The Company had approximately 735 stockholders of record as of March 12, 2018.

Stock Performance Graph

The performance graph and table below compares the cumulative total stockholder return on the common stock of the Company with the cumulative total return on the equity securities included in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (S&P 500), which reflects overall stock market performance and the KBW Bank Index, which is a modified cap-weighted index consisting of 24 exchange-listed National Market stocks. The graph assumes an initial $100 investment on December 30, 2016 through December 29, 2017. Data for the S&P 500 and KBW Regional Bank Index assumes reinvestment of dividends. Returns are shown on a total return basis. The performance graph represents past performance and should not be considered to be an indication of future performance. The information in this paragraph and the following stock performance graph shall not be deemed to be “soliciting material” or to be “filed” with the SEC or subject to Regulation 14A or 14C, other than as provided in Item 201 of Regulation S-K, or to the liabilities of Section 18 of the Exchange Act, except to the extent that we specifically request that such information be treated as soliciting material or specifically incorporate it by reference into a filing under the Securities Act or the Exchange Act.

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Dividend Policy

Prior to our initial public offering, we were an S corporation for U.S. federal income tax purposes. As an S Corporation, we historically made distributions to our sole shareholder to provide him with funds to pay U.S. federal income tax on our taxable income that was “passed through” to him. We also historically paid additional dividends to our shareholder as a return on his investment from time to time. Following our initial public offering and after our conversion to a C corporation, our dividend policy and practice changed, and we will no longer pay distributions to provide our shareholders with funds to pay U.S. federal income tax on their pro rata portion of our taxable income.

We currently intend to retain our future earnings, if any, to fund the development and growth of our business, and we currently do not anticipate paying any dividends to the holders of our common stock. Any future determination relating to our dividend policy will be made by our board of directors and will depend on a number of factors, including general and economic conditions, industry standards, our financial condition and operating results, our available cash and current and anticipated cash needs, capital requirements, banking regulations, contractual, legal, tax and regulatory restrictions and implications on the payment of dividends by us to our shareholders or by the Bank to us, and such other factors as our board of directors may deem relevant.

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The following table shows the dividends that have been declared on our common stock with respect to the periods indicated below. Per share amounts are presented to the nearest cent.  

As a bank holding company, any dividends paid by us are subject to various federal and state regulatory limitations and also may be subject to the ability of the Bank to make distributions or pay dividends to us. The Bank is also subject to various legal, regulatory and other restrictions on its ability to pay dividends and make other distributions and payments to us. Our ability to pay dividends is limited by minimum capital and other requirements prescribed by law and regulation. Furthermore, we are generally prohibited under Tennessee corporate law from making a distribution to a shareholder to the extent that, at the time of the distribution, after giving effect to the distribution, we would not be able to pay our debts as they become due in the usual course of business or our total assets would be less than the sum of its total liabilities plus (unless the charter permits otherwise) the amount that would be needed, if we were to be dissolved at the time of the distribution, to satisfy the preferential rights upon dissolution of any shareholders who may have preferential rights superior to those receiving the distribution. In addition, financing arrangements that we may enter into in the future may include restrictive covenants that may limit our ability to pay dividends.

Sale of Equity Securities and Use of Proceeds

Initial Public Offering

On September 15, 2016, our registration statement on Form S-1 (Registration No. 333-213210) was declared effective by the SEC for our underwritten initial public offering in which we sold a total of 6,764,704 shares of our common stock at a price to the public of $19.00 per share. J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, UBS Securities LLC, and Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc., acted as the joint book-running managers for the offering, and Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Sandler O’Neill & Partners, L.P., and Stephens Inc. acted as co-managers.

The offering commenced on September 15, 2016 and closed on September 21, 2016. All of the shares registered pursuant to the registration statement were sold at an aggregate offering price of $128.5 million. We received net proceeds of approximately $115.5 million after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions of $9.0 million and other offering expenses of $4.0 million. No payments with respect to expenses were made by us to directors, officers or persons owning ten percent or more of either class of our common stock or to their associates, or to our affiliates. However, $55.0 million of the net proceeds from the offering were used to fund a cash distribution to James W. Ayers, our majority shareholder and executive chairman, which was intended to be non-taxable to Mr. Ayers, and $10.1 million of the net proceeds from the offering were used to fund the repayment of all amounts outstanding under our subordinated notes held by Mr. Ayers. During the third quarter of 2017, approximately $7.8 million was used to fund the merger with the Clayton Banks. Remaining proceeds of approximately $27.1 million from the offering remain in interest bearing deposits in other financial institutions and may be used to support our growth, including to fund our organic growth and implement our strategic initiatives, which may include the potential expansion of our business through opportunistic acquisitions of depository institutions and other complementary businesses, and selective acquisitions of assets, deposits and branches that we believe present attractive risk-adjusted returns or provide a strategic benefit to our growth strategy, for working capital and for other general corporate purposes, and to strengthen our regulatory capital. There has been no material change in the planned use of proceeds from our initial public offering as described in our prospectus filed with the SEC on September 19, 2016 pursuant to Rule 424(b)(4) under the Securities Act.

Private Placement

As previously reported in our Current Report on Form 8-K that was filed with the SEC on May 26, 2017, we sold 4,806,710 shares of our common stock (the “Private Placement Shares”) to accredited investors in a private placement that closed on June 1, 2017.  We received net proceeds of approximately $152.7 million from the sale of the Private Placement Shares after deducting placement agent fees of approximately $5.5 million and other offering expenses of

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approximately $0.4 million.  The net proceeds were used to fund a portion of the payment of approximately $184.2 million cash consideration to Clayton HC, Inc. in connection with our acquisition of Clayton Bank and Trust and American City Bank, which closed on July 31, 2017.  The Private Placement Shares were not registered under the Securities Act in reliance on the exemption from registration in Section 4(a)(2) of the Securities Act and Regulation D promulgated under the Securities Act.

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ITEM 6 - Selected Financial Data

The following selected historical consolidated financial data of the Company should be read in conjunction with, and are qualified by reference to, “Management’s discussion and analysis of financial condition and results of operations” and the consolidated financial statements and notes thereto included elsewhere herein. Our historical results for any prior period are not necessarily indicative of results to be expected in any future period.

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GAAP reconciliation and management explanation of non-GAAP financial measures

We identify certain of the financial measures discussed in our selected historical consolidated financial data as being “non-GAAP financial measures.” In accordance with the SEC’s rules, we classify a financial measure as being a non-GAAP financial measure if that financial measure excludes or includes amounts, or is subject to adjustments that have the effect of excluding or including amounts, that are included or excluded, as the case may be, in the most directly comparable measure calculated and presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles as in effect from time to time in the United States in our statements of income, balance sheets or statements of cash flows.

The non-GAAP financial measures that we discuss in our selected historical consolidated financial data should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the most directly comparable or other financial measures calculated in accordance with GAAP. Moreover, the manner in which we calculate the non-GAAP financial measures that we discuss in our selected historical consolidated financial data may differ from that of other companies reporting measures with similar names. You should understand how such other banking organizations calculate their financial measures similar or with names similar to the non-GAAP financial measures we have discussed in our selected historical consolidated financial data when comparing such non-GAAP financial measures. The following reconciliation tables provide a more detailed analysis of these, and reconciliation for, each of non-GAAP financial measures

Adjusted efficiency ratio

The adjusted efficiency ratio is a non-GAAP measure that excludes securities gains (losses), merger-related and conversion expenses, one time IPO equity grants and other selected items. Our management uses this measure in its analysis of our performance. Our management believes this measure provides a greater understanding of ongoing operations and enhances comparability of results with prior periods, as well as demonstrates the effects of significant gains and charges.  The most directly comparable financial measure calculated in accordance with GAAP is the efficiency ratio.

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The following table presents, as of the dates set forth below, the calculation of our efficiency ratio on a tax-equivalent basis.