Through our subsidiaries, we conduct a full-service commercial banking business. Our banking centers are located primarily in Central, North Central, Southeast and West Texas. As of January 1, 2020, we had 78 financial centers across Texas, with eleven locations in Abilene, three locations in Bryan and Weatherford, two locations in Cleburne, College Station, Conroe, San Angelo, Stephenville, and Granbury, and one location each in Acton, Albany, Aledo, Alvarado, Beaumont, Boyd, Bridgeport, Brock, Burleson, Cisco, Clyde, Cut and Shoot, Decatur, Eastland, El Campo, Fort Worth, Fulshear, Glen Rose, Grapevine, Hereford, Huntsville, Keller, Kingwood, Magnolia, Mauriceville, Merkel, Midlothian, Mineral Wells, Montgomery, Moran, New Waverly, Newton, Odessa, Orange, Palacios, Port Arthur, Ranger, Rising Star, Roby, Southlake, Spring, Sweetwater, Tomball, Trent, Trophy Club, Vidor, Waxahachie, Willis and Willow Park, all in Texas.
Even though we operate in a growing number of Texas markets, we continue to believe that decisions are best made at the local level. Although we consolidated our bank charters into one charter in 2012, we continue to regionally manage our operations with local advisory boards of directors, local bank region presidents and local decision-makers. We have consolidated substantially all of the backroom operations, such as investment securities, accounting, check processing, technology and employee benefits, which improved our efficiency and freed management of our bank regions to concentrate on serving the banking needs of their local communities.
In the past, we have chosen to keep our Company focused on the State of Texas, one of the nation’s largest, fastest-growing and most economically diverse states. With approximately 29.0 million residents, Texas has more people than any other state except California. The population of Texas grew 20.7% from 2008-2018 according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Many of the communities in which we operate are also experiencing positive growth as shown below:
Population Growth 2008-2018*
| | | | |
Bridgeport and Wise County | | | | % |
Fort Worth and Tarrant County | | | | % |
Cleburne and Johnson County | | | | % |
| | | | % |
Weatherford, Willow Park, Aledo and Parker County | | | | % |
| | | | |
Stephenville and Erath County | | | | % |
Conroe and Montgomery County | | | | % |
| | | | % |
* | Source: U. S. Census Bureau |
These economies include dynamic centers of higher education, agriculture, wind energy and natural resources, retail, military, healthcare, tourism, retirement living, manufacturing and distribution.
We believe our community approach to doing business works best for us in small and
mid-size
markets, where we can play a prominent role in the economic, civic and cultural life of the community. Our goal is to serve these communities well and to experience growth as these markets continue to expand. In many instances, banking competition is less intense in smaller markets, making it easier for us to operate rationally and attract and retain high-caliber employees who prefer not only our community-banker concept but the high quality of life in smaller cities.
Over the years, we have grown in three ways: by growing organically, by opening new branch locations and by acquiring other banks. Since 1997, we have completed thirteen bank acquisitions and have increased our total assets from $1.57 billion to $8.26 billion as of December 31, 2019. We also have a trust and asset management company and a technology services company. First Financial Trust and Asset Management Company, National Association operates as a subsidiary of First Financial Bankshares, Inc. and First Technology Services, Inc. operates as a subsidiary of First Financial Bank, National Association, Abilene, Texas. Looking ahead, we intend to continue to grow organically by better serving the needs of our customers and putting them first in all of our decisions. We continually look for new branch locations, such as our newest branch in Spring, Texas which opened in January 2019, so we can provide more convenient service to our customers. We are actively pursuing acquisition opportunities by calling on banks that we are interested in possibly acquiring.
When targeting a bank for acquisition, the subject bank generally needs to be well managed and profitable, while being located in the type of community that fits our profile. We seek to enter growing communities with good amenities – schools, infrastructure, commerce and lifestyle. We prefer
non-metropolitan
markets, either around Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio or Austin or along the Interstate 35, 45, 10 and 20 corridors in Texas. We might also consider the acquisition of banks in East Texas, the Texas Hill Country area or in states contiguous to Texas. Banks between $300 million and $1.0 billion in asset size fit our “sweet spot” for acquisition, but we would consider banks that are larger or smaller, or that are in other areas of Texas if we believe they would be a good fit for our Company.