Hancock Whitney’s wealth advisory business now tops $49 billion in assets one year after the bank acquired St. Petersburg-based Sabal Trust Company, a deal that added roughly $3 billion in trust and asset-management assets along with Sabal’s advisory and trust teams.
Hancock Whitney is expanding its private banking and wealth advisory business across Florida as regional lenders chase affluent clients and recurring fee revenue tied to migration into the state.
The strategy reflects Hancock Whitney’s broader push into Florida’s middle market, where privately owned businesses often generate demand for treasury management, estate planning, succession planning and wealth advisory services alongside commercial banking.
In a February interview with Tampa Bay Business and Wealth, Regional President and Head of Commercial Banking Eric Obeck said the Sabal acquisition strengthened the bank’s ability to keep commercial and personal financial relationships under one roof as business owners navigate liquidity events, ownership transitions and private equity activity.
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The bank on Monday placed several former Sabal executives in key Florida leadership roles as it continues integrating the trust company into its broader private banking operation.
Former Sabal CEO Bryant Jones now oversees Hancock Whitney’s private wealth offices across the bank’s Gulf Coast footprint. Former Sabal executives Travis Brown and Tim Willard now lead several Florida markets, including the Tampa Bay region and parts of North Florida.
“When someone has a large liquidity event, they’re going to need to do something with that money,” Obeck said in the February interview.
“That transaction represented our commitment to bringing wealth management, commercial banking and consumer banking together under one organization,” Hancock Whitney Chief Wealth Management Officer Miles Milton said in a statement.
Sabal was among Florida’s largest employee-owned trust companies before the sale. Hancock Whitney’s wealth-management division now serves high- and ultra-high-net-worth clients across Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
Hancock Whitney operates more than 180 financial centers across the Gulf South and traces its charter to 1899.
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