Truist Financial Is New Name for Combined BB&T, SunTrust
June 12 2019 - 5:42PM
Dow Jones News
By Allison Prang
BB&T Corp. and SunTrust Banks Inc. said Wednesday they will
adopt the name Truist Financial Corp. when they close their merger,
the biggest bank deal since the financial crisis.
The companies announced in February they would combine in a deal
that has been valued at $28.2 billion. At the time, they said they
would adopt a new name and leave both of their headquarters cities
for Charlotte, N.C. They worked with global brand consulting firm
Interbrand to decide on their branding, they said.
The bank will be called Truist Bank. It will be the
sixth-largest retail bank in the U.S.
The companies expect the deal to close in the second half of
2019. While shareholders of BB&T and SunTrust will vote on the
merger, only BB&T's shareholders will vote on the new name, the
companies said.
Robert Passikoff, founder and president of New York-based Brand
Keys Inc., said Truist is "what we in branding call a mostly
harmless name,"
"It means kind of whatever you want to make it mean," Mr.
Passikoff said.
The Twitter account for BB&T responded Wednesday to a number
of tweets criticizing or commenting on the name. Among the concerns
by Twitter users was the future of SunTrust Park, the home field
for the Atlanta Braves baseball team. BB&T representatives on
Twitter responded by saying, "SunTrust Park has a special place in
our hearts, the new company will never change that."
BB&T and SunTrust said earlier Wednesday that they selected
a high-rise building in Charlotte's financial district as their new
headquarters. The companies said the combined banking enterprise
will take up more than half of the tower's space and ultimately
have around 2,000 employees at those offices.
BB&T is based in Winston-Salem, N.C., and SunTrust is based
in Atlanta.
Write to Allison Prang at allison.prang@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 12, 2019 17:27 ET (21:27 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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