Origin Bank, headquartered in the village of Choudrant, will become the largest bank headquartered in Louisiana, with $5.5 billion in assets when IberiaBank’s merger with First Horizon is complete and its headquarters is moved from Lafayette to Memphis, Tennessee, under the First Horizon name, The News Star reports.
“Most people are going to be shocked,” Origin Bank’s CEO Drake Mills says, laughing.
Though the bank headquarters is in Choudrant, with a population of fewer than 1,000 and one blinking traffic light, the corporate company headquarters is in Ruston.
Mills said he promised his mentor and former CEO the late John Emory that he wouldn’t move the bank headquarters address, paying homage to the company’s roots starting as the Bank of Choudrant in 1912.
Mills took the company public in the spring of 2018 and it now trades under the symbol OBNK. Origin Bank employs about 800 companywide with operations in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. More than 200 of those, including the company’s executive team, are located at the corporate headquarters in Ruston. Louisiana energy magnate James Davison is among the bank’s largest stockholders.
The bank changed its name from the Bank of Choudrant to Community Trust Bank in 1986 and to Origin Bank in 2015 to elevate its brand as the company continued to expand beyond its founding borders with an eye toward going public. Read the full feature about the history of what is soon to be Louisiana’s largest bank.
