There is certainly enough out on the web and in the daily news to read about the current economy. The trouble is, who do you believe, how much of it is just the doom and gloom spin created by the media, and how much of it is true.
I'll try to give you my personal perspective on the economy with one disclaimer. This is my personal opinion and not the opinion of my employer or anyone else that matters from a legal perspective.
I recently attended a real estate seminar put on by a local well-respected Appraisal firm, Integra Realty. They presented all sorts of good data in this half day seminar and included some Q&A panels that included some of the local heavy-hitters in the local real estate industry. (Darryl Isaacs was not there so excuse the heavy-hitter phrase.)
The main thing I took out of the seminar was the tremendous amount of inventory that exists in Jefferson, Oldham, Shelby, Bullitt and Spencer counties. The good news is it seems most homebuilders have stopped building the spec homes they had been building and are really only starting contract homes. The bad news is, they still have many of their spec inventory that they built last year.
Oil prices reached a record high this week at $103 per barrel. This converts to higher prices at the gas pump, higher commodities prices, etc. At some point this does and will affect consumer spending. We're back to paying over $50 to fill up our SUVs. For those of us who drive quite a bit, this adds up.
One interesting thing that was brought up at the Integra seminar that ties the fuel to the housing: It was noted that Bullitt and Shelby are being hit particularly hard in this housing crunch with a tremendous amount of inventory. Some speculate that because the fuel prices have climbed so high, more people are deciding to move in closer to the places they work instead of having the longer commutes.
Last but certainly not least, the financial sector continues to disappoint with the whole sub-prime stuff that's going on. I continue to hear that we have not yet witnessed all the issues that are out there for some of these institutions. There is still more fallout to come from this mess. I suspect that we are in for some very interesting times with the real estate market even in this area. Louisville has historically been sheltered from most real estate corrections but I think we will see corrections occur right here in our hometown.
I was reading an article this past week describing how various banks are reviewing their portfolios and beginning to make market adjustments writing down the estimated value of homes in their portfolios and then beginning conversations with their clients about sending in checks to pay down their loan balances to get the Loan-to-Value ratios back within acceptable terms. How widespread this becomes remains to be seen.
I basically think we have too many things going on negative to think this will end anytime soon. I think we are in a 2 year slump. I think rates will drop again in an effort to provide stimulus to economy but they can only go so low and I don't think Bernanke is likely to take the rates as low as Greenspan did. We'll see.
In the meantime, take a look at your line of credit rate, take a look at your term debt rates, meet with a great banker (I might know someone!), and review your debt structure. Also, don't forget to have me check on what you're paying your bank for depositing money in their bank. I am shocked by what I am seeing charged in analysis charges on commercial accounts.
Give me a call. I look forward to showing you the way!
Friday, February 29, 2008
Who is Chris Bell?
Chris Bell was born in 1972 in Louisville, Kentucky to Jim and Joan Bell who have now been married for 46 years. I was their fourth child and first son. Yes, I was born into a family with 3 older sisters. Oh yeah, you're saying, "Well, that explains some things about Chris." Six short years later, I was the upset older brother of another SISTER! Now you're saying, "Wow, THAT REALLY EXPLAINS some things about Chris." All kidding aside, I did grow up with FOUR sisters who I dearly love. I would not change a thing.
We range in age from 45 to 29 years old. Sixteen years difference between my oldest sister, Lori and my youngest sister, Stephanie. Talk about a house that always had something going on! Can you imagine the drama I witnessed?
We all went through St. Edward Grade School, the 3 older sisters followed in my Mom's footsteps and went to Mercy, I went to St. X and Stephanie went to Assumption.
I was always the kid who wanted to do the right thing, follow the rules, be the best I could be, etc. To this day I have never even taken a draw off a cigarette, and never will. Boring, probably to some degree, but I never saw it that way. I have always gotten my enjoyment out of soaking in the environment around me.
After St. X, I decided to stay at home and go to Bellarmine. It ended up being one of the best decisions of my life. I think within the first week or two of school, I met my wife, Terri. We were both dating other people at the time but we were in a small group of friends at school. Eventually near the end of our Freshman year, we were both single and had our eyes on each other. I truly believe that I am one the lucky ones who actually found their "soulmate".
We are both pretty laid back and don't sweat the small stuff but rather look for solutions. We are also hard drivers and goal oriented in our careers and hobbies. If you read the prior two sentences, they almost seem like opposites but somehow we are able to find the laid back side in our personal "at home" life and the goal oriented hard driver side in our professional lives. Terri is a CPA and I earned my MBA shortly before our first son Matt was born. A couple years later we were blessed with the birth of our son, Mark. (There are no plans for a Luke or John for those of you going there!)
However, we did recently complete our application for an International Adoption from Thailand. We hope to be blessed with a little girl. This is always something we hoped to do, God willing. When we were in college and getting engaged, talking wedding, kids, etc., we always said we wanted to have 2 children and if we ever decided to have 3, we would adopt the 3rd.
Wow, I have told you a lot about me personally. If you are still there and not asleep, I guess I'll try to tell you a little about me professionally.
I started with National City in June 1994 fresh out of college in the Officer Training Program. I credit National City and my awesome mentors, Linda Schaber, Bill Shepard, David Fennell and Chuck Denny with helping me become the professional that I've become. There are others who I have not mentioned but I don't think I could have been blessed with better people to work with over the years.
I managed the largest Middle Market portfolio for several years and enjoyed every minute of my time at National City (okay, well almost every moment). In my last year or so, I travelled some back and forth to Owensboro handling a portfolio of accounts there in addition to my portfolio in Louisville. This was a great experience as I was going into a market that had historically been covered in market and had to tell clients that I would be taking care of them out of Louisville. You can imagine the initial reception.
However, I think this experience gave me the added confidence that I was very good at building relationships with my clients as I didn't lose a single account in Owensboro. I have always tried live my life by the saying, "Attitudes are Contagious . . . Is Yours Worth Catching?" I actually first saw this in a Successories picture of matchsticks side by side with the first one or two on fire. I'll try to post a pic of it at some point.
Well, it's late and who knows how this reads at this point. I'll stop for now.
If I can be of assistance, please feel free to call me.
We range in age from 45 to 29 years old. Sixteen years difference between my oldest sister, Lori and my youngest sister, Stephanie. Talk about a house that always had something going on! Can you imagine the drama I witnessed?
We all went through St. Edward Grade School, the 3 older sisters followed in my Mom's footsteps and went to Mercy, I went to St. X and Stephanie went to Assumption.
I was always the kid who wanted to do the right thing, follow the rules, be the best I could be, etc. To this day I have never even taken a draw off a cigarette, and never will. Boring, probably to some degree, but I never saw it that way. I have always gotten my enjoyment out of soaking in the environment around me.
After St. X, I decided to stay at home and go to Bellarmine. It ended up being one of the best decisions of my life. I think within the first week or two of school, I met my wife, Terri. We were both dating other people at the time but we were in a small group of friends at school. Eventually near the end of our Freshman year, we were both single and had our eyes on each other. I truly believe that I am one the lucky ones who actually found their "soulmate".
We are both pretty laid back and don't sweat the small stuff but rather look for solutions. We are also hard drivers and goal oriented in our careers and hobbies. If you read the prior two sentences, they almost seem like opposites but somehow we are able to find the laid back side in our personal "at home" life and the goal oriented hard driver side in our professional lives. Terri is a CPA and I earned my MBA shortly before our first son Matt was born. A couple years later we were blessed with the birth of our son, Mark. (There are no plans for a Luke or John for those of you going there!)
However, we did recently complete our application for an International Adoption from Thailand. We hope to be blessed with a little girl. This is always something we hoped to do, God willing. When we were in college and getting engaged, talking wedding, kids, etc., we always said we wanted to have 2 children and if we ever decided to have 3, we would adopt the 3rd.
Wow, I have told you a lot about me personally. If you are still there and not asleep, I guess I'll try to tell you a little about me professionally.
I started with National City in June 1994 fresh out of college in the Officer Training Program. I credit National City and my awesome mentors, Linda Schaber, Bill Shepard, David Fennell and Chuck Denny with helping me become the professional that I've become. There are others who I have not mentioned but I don't think I could have been blessed with better people to work with over the years.
I managed the largest Middle Market portfolio for several years and enjoyed every minute of my time at National City (okay, well almost every moment). In my last year or so, I travelled some back and forth to Owensboro handling a portfolio of accounts there in addition to my portfolio in Louisville. This was a great experience as I was going into a market that had historically been covered in market and had to tell clients that I would be taking care of them out of Louisville. You can imagine the initial reception.
However, I think this experience gave me the added confidence that I was very good at building relationships with my clients as I didn't lose a single account in Owensboro. I have always tried live my life by the saying, "Attitudes are Contagious . . . Is Yours Worth Catching?" I actually first saw this in a Successories picture of matchsticks side by side with the first one or two on fire. I'll try to post a pic of it at some point.
Well, it's late and who knows how this reads at this point. I'll stop for now.
If I can be of assistance, please feel free to call me.
Why Central Bank?
Hi and welcome to my Blog. This is a first for me . . . the whole Blog thing. I have never created a blog but thought I'd give it a shot and see where I could go with this.
I've been a Corporate Banker my entire career (about 14 years now) and spent most of my career at the largest Commercial Bank in the State of Kentucky for the past 13.5 years until I recently departed to pursue what I believe is a "chance of a lifetime opportunity" with Central Bank.
Central Bank is the dominant bank in the market they started in (Central Kentucky/Lexington area) as rated by Greenwich Associates. The bank has been around for about 65 years and takes great pride in the fact that it is a locally owned bank having the size that allows it to compete and actually have lead market share in its original market even against the superregional banks of National City, PNC, Fifth Third, BB&T, etc.
In the past couple years, Central Bank has expanded its markets into Northern Kentucky and Louisville. My goal is take all the great things I've learned and experienced and couple these with all the positives of our Lexington based bank, and create a dynamic, client-centric commercial bank for the Greater Louisville Business Community. I am confident that the Louisville Business Community desperately wants a Bank that is focused on them and their business rather than on what products and services can be sold to improve the Bank's bottom line.
So many of the local banks have shareholders they must report to that it seems their only focus is to grow the top line while cutting out as many expenses (aka service) as they can to ultimately improve the bottom line. I have witnessed banks making cut after cut after cut to the point you think they can cut no more until you realize that instead of cutting one or two more people from each department, they move on to cut entire departments.
This is going on in every market and it seems to be in every bank. One of the most refreshing things I heard when I came to Central was that the Kincaid sisters (who own the majority of the shares of Central Bank) treat the employees and clients of Central Bank like family. (YES, I did say "employees and CLIENTS".) I also was told that while the Bank obviously is in business to make profits (and does), the Kincaids also manage the Bank (or advise the Bank management) in a way that benefits the Bank for the long term while benefiting both the clients and employees of Central Bank.
I remember sitting through a Product Knowledge training class shortly after I started with Central and saying, "You've got to be kidding me." over and over as we reviewed the pricing on various products and services. The prices were so much cheaper than what I have been accustomed to. I think this is demonstrative of my comments above.
I believe if we can get our message out to as many Businesses in the area as we can and continue to deliver the Central Bank service that our current clients have become so appreciative of, we can build the Louisville market into market who predominantly chooses to do their business with Central Bank.
Have I peeked your interest in learning more about Central Bank service?
I've been a Corporate Banker my entire career (about 14 years now) and spent most of my career at the largest Commercial Bank in the State of Kentucky for the past 13.5 years until I recently departed to pursue what I believe is a "chance of a lifetime opportunity" with Central Bank.
Central Bank is the dominant bank in the market they started in (Central Kentucky/Lexington area) as rated by Greenwich Associates. The bank has been around for about 65 years and takes great pride in the fact that it is a locally owned bank having the size that allows it to compete and actually have lead market share in its original market even against the superregional banks of National City, PNC, Fifth Third, BB&T, etc.
In the past couple years, Central Bank has expanded its markets into Northern Kentucky and Louisville. My goal is take all the great things I've learned and experienced and couple these with all the positives of our Lexington based bank, and create a dynamic, client-centric commercial bank for the Greater Louisville Business Community. I am confident that the Louisville Business Community desperately wants a Bank that is focused on them and their business rather than on what products and services can be sold to improve the Bank's bottom line.
So many of the local banks have shareholders they must report to that it seems their only focus is to grow the top line while cutting out as many expenses (aka service) as they can to ultimately improve the bottom line. I have witnessed banks making cut after cut after cut to the point you think they can cut no more until you realize that instead of cutting one or two more people from each department, they move on to cut entire departments.
This is going on in every market and it seems to be in every bank. One of the most refreshing things I heard when I came to Central was that the Kincaid sisters (who own the majority of the shares of Central Bank) treat the employees and clients of Central Bank like family. (YES, I did say "employees and CLIENTS".) I also was told that while the Bank obviously is in business to make profits (and does), the Kincaids also manage the Bank (or advise the Bank management) in a way that benefits the Bank for the long term while benefiting both the clients and employees of Central Bank.
I remember sitting through a Product Knowledge training class shortly after I started with Central and saying, "You've got to be kidding me." over and over as we reviewed the pricing on various products and services. The prices were so much cheaper than what I have been accustomed to. I think this is demonstrative of my comments above.
I believe if we can get our message out to as many Businesses in the area as we can and continue to deliver the Central Bank service that our current clients have become so appreciative of, we can build the Louisville market into market who predominantly chooses to do their business with Central Bank.
Have I peeked your interest in learning more about Central Bank service?
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