Union Planters Corp Multi State Bank Holding Company

Memphis businessman William Farrington, who prospered during and immediately after the Civil War, held the driving force behind the foundation of Union Planters Corporation. With more than $34 billion in assets, it is Tennessee's largest multi-state bank holding company whose primary motive of business is banking covering the principal areas based on Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas.

This group has a diversified range of provisions in its staple activities of financial services in consumer, commercial, and corporate lending; retail banking and other ancillary financial services furnished by full-service financial institutions. Union Planters Corp operates 4 banking subsidiaries with 762 banking offices and 965 ATMs.

Union Planters Corp has additional services of factoring operations; mortgage origination and servicing; investment management and trust services; the issuance of debit cards; the credit cards offerings; the origination, packaging, and loans securitization.


In 1868, sitting on the board of the DeSoto Insurance Company, Farrington decided to organize a bank and on February 12, 1969, the new bank Union and Planters Bank of Memphis emerged with Farrington as its elected president. The Branch Union Bank and the Branch Planters Bank, were the two most respected banks of that decade and by combining Union and Planters, the former financial institution of the Memphis city emerged as a new bank. Selling up a stock of $671,300, Union Planters Corp. built a shop in an insurance office while a three-storied brownstone remodeled to serve as a permanent home was situated in the heart of the Memphis financial district.

Ultimately, the bank was opened for business on September 1, 1869. For the first few years, Union Planters Corp. was plagued by large overdrafts and it held loans of more than $200,000 by Farrington and his partner. To facilitate growth of the bank, it merged with Tennessee Trust Company that was known as Security Bank of Memphis and worked together as an entity; Union and Planters Bank and Trust Company.

In 1918 the bank opened its first branch while others were operating their services from a single point. Soon, by the year 1919, a remarkable growth was shown with the presidentship of Hill and Union Planters Corp. stepped its 50th anniversary. A second office was opened in 1922 at
Main and Beale.

With a year turn up, North Memphis Savings Bank was converted into Union Planters Corp third branch. The ups and downs went on with the bank with consecutive changes of the CEOs and the Managing executives, but the bank slowly and steadily proceeded to achieve its goal of success by capturing, buying and acquiring small banks and other trusts. During the year 2004, one of the biggest banks in Alabama, The Regions Financial Corporation, agreed to merge with the Union Planters Corp. with a $5.9 billion transaction that would create a bank with 1,400 branches in the South and Midwest. Today, measured by assets of more than $81 billion, the combined bank is the country's 20th largest bank with an additional $56 billion in deposits.investorwords