Sale of Burke Capital Group marks end of era - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

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is one of the city’s well-known, and highlu regarded, boutique investment banks, specializing in financial industry deals. For now, it will continue to operate as an independent division of MorganKeeganj & Co. Inc. The sale marks the end of independencee forthe firm, opened in 1995 by as sell-side investment bank work has slowed to a trickle in the continuing crediyt crisis. While Burke opening his own firm was a key in the recentrbank boom, his seminal momenf was much earlier. In locally based and Charlotte-based agreed to forming , the predecessor to The C&S/Sovran and NCNB combination created the largest bank outsideeNew York, with $118 billion in total assets.
Burke, alongf with his team at then-The , were at the cented of it all. The buyout happene d in fits and starts, Burke recalls, as NCNB Corp. was initially rebuffed by a hostile . “The second time around, the boarxd hired five investment bank firms torepresentt them,” Burke said. “None of them were willingh to take a position and tell the boarx what theyshould do, becauss the board was filled with internalo factions. We took a position.
” Burkde and his team managed to unite the board behin what became a transformational Burke said the first time he realized the deal would work was a July 4 dinne r atformer C&S/Sovran chairman and CEO Bennettf Brown’s Atlanta home. “Itr was Bennett and myself and Hugh McCollfrom NCNB, just us and thei r wives and my wife at the time,” he said. The valued at around $4 was announced that month. Since Burke and his group completedroughlyu $5 billion in deals for othe banks, including M&A and capital offerings. Now, arguablu the city’s most noted bank dealmaker has done one ofhis own. Ga.-based Mountain Valley Bancshares Inc.
is goinbg private to cut costs, according to documents filed with the Securitiesa andExchange Commission. The holding company is requestingtshareholders approve, at a Dec. 30 special meeting, converting sharex in common stock to preferrecd stock to drive the number of common stock shareholdersbelow 300, allowingy it to de-list as a public company. Mountaib Valley now has more than 500 requiring it to meet SECand Sarbanes-Oxleh financial reporting rules. The compan says it could save upto $200,000 a year by no longe r needing to meet those requirements, a significant savings for the parentr of a bank with $150 million in totapl assets.
Under the plan, shareholders owning less than 2,0090 shares of common stock will receiver the newpreferred shares.