By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
JAN. 31, 2025 | A Gwinnett County-headquartered bank has been sold to United Bankshares Inc., which has dual headquarters in Washington, D.C,. and Charleston, West Virginia.
Piedmont Bank of Peachtree Corners will continue to operate under that name for a few months, but eventually will be known locally under the United Bankshares name, says Monty Watson, who was president and CEO of Piedmont Bank. Watson has been named regional president of United Bankshares. New signage should be up by the end of March. The acquisition of Piedmont Bank marks United Shareholders first venture into Georgia.
Piedmont Bank began in 2009 by local residents and has grown to 16 banks in Georgia, with assets of $2.4 billion. It is currently staffed by 155 employees. It started with $160 million in total assets. On Jan. 10, 2025, United Bankshares officially acquired Piedmont Bank.
United Bankshares has 240 banks in six states plus the District of Columbia. As of Dec. 31, 2024, it had consolidated assets of $30 billion, and was the 41st largest banking company in the United States, based on market capitalization. It had operations in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and in the District of Columbia. It has dual headquarters in Charleston, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C. It is traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the quotation symbol “UBSI.”
Earnings for United Bankshares in the fourth quarter of 2024 were $94.4 million, or $0.69 per diluted share, as compared to earnings of $95.3 million, or $0.70 per diluted share, for the third quarter of 2024.
Watson
Watson is a veteran of the Metro Atlanta banking market. After graduation from the University of Georgia, he attended Duke University for his master’s degree in business administration. He joined in 1989 a three-year-old Gwinnett start-up bank, First Gwinnett Bank of Norcross, and later became its president. This bank was sold to Regions Bank in 1996, and still retains its office in Norcross.
In 1997,Watson put together a group of stockholders to form Peachtree Bank, which was located in Johns Creek on Georgia Highway 141, with the bank starting operation in 1998. Peachtree Bank was sold in 2006 to Alabama National Corporation, which in turn was sold to the Royal Bank of Canada in 2008. Eventually, the Royal Bank of Canada sold its United States operations to PNC Bank out of Pittsburgh, Penn.
It was in 2009 that Watson and 200 shareholders formed Piedmont Bank by putting up $24 million to recapitalize the Republic Bank of Georgia, which was a bank in financial trouble. That was ahead of the efforts in 2010 by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s efforts to purchase failing banks.
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