Florida Banking March 2022

O riginally founded as Gold Coast National Bank in North Miami Beach over 40 years ago, the bank was renamed Commercebank in 1982 and acquired by the Venezuelan group Mercantil Servicios Financieros in 1987. The bank was then renamed Mercantil Bank in 2017 and together with its US holding company spun off from the Caracas group in 2018, announcing its new brand, Amerant, shortly after that year. Today, Amerant Bank is headquartered in Coral Gables as a wholly owned subsidiary of Amerant Bancorp Inc. The bank has $7.64 billion in assets and over 600 employees with 17 branches in South Florida and seven in Houston. Amerant has evolved over the last year under the leadership of its new Vice Chairman, President & CEO, Jerry Plush, who implemented a set of strategic initiatives with the goal of becoming a top quartile performer. Plush has served on the Board of Directors of Amerant since July 2019, and was asked to be one of four board members to serve on the search committee for the new CEO. While the committee was pleased with its final candidates, they ultimately offered the role to Plush. “I love being in a leadership position and I love working with people. When you work at a small firm and you’re on a lot of boards, you don’t have as much of a direct impact on everything as you do when you

lead an organization like this one; I have to say that I jumped at the opportunity,” said Plush. Investing in Marketing When he joined Amerant at the beginning of 2021, Plush saw the need to increase Amerant’s brand recognition, as its rebranding from the Mercantil name was overshadowed by the tumultuous year of the Covid pandemic. The company quickly moved to engage Zimmerman Advertising to increase Amerant’s brand awareness and recognition in target markets and through their partnership with local hockey team the Florida Panthers. “I’ve been a hockey person my whole life. At the beginning of last year, the Panthers had a great run, but some unfinished business in the playoffs, and we saw this partnership as a win-win for both of our organizations,” said Plush. Amerant is the helmet sponsor for Panthers home games. Plush is pleased with how beautifully the orange Amerant logo stands out on the navy helmets in pictures and on TV. The partnership also includes virtual on-ice logo positioning during games and allows for great social media tie-ins. Amerant’s “imagine a bank” campaign uses photos of the Panthers to illustrate clever taglines like, “Imagine a bank that has your back.” Amerant Bank, Continued on page 10

The Amerant Bank management team in the lobby of the Coral Gables branch in Miami.

WWW.FLORIDABANKERS.COM MARCH 2022 — 9