Fresh off merger, Pinnacle plans to keep hiring bankers

• Key insight: Pinnacle Financial Partners laid out its hiring expectations for 2026, as well as its loan growth outlook for the year.
• Supporting data: The bank is looking to recruit and hire 225-250 revenue-producing bankers, such as relationship managers and trust and wealth advisors. The target number is even higher for 2027.
• Expert quote: “Disruption is our friend.” — Pinnacle CEO Kevin Blair

Pinnacle Financial Partners, which completed a transformative merger just three weeks ago, is keeping its foot firmly on the gas pedal when it comes to hiring bankers.

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The Atlanta-based holding company of Pinnacle Bank expects to bring on board between 225 and 250 revenue-producing bankers in 2026, plus another 250-275 the following year, it said Thursday.

It plans to recruit experienced bankers across its expanded footprint in the Southeast, where bank mergers and acquisitions, along with organic expansion, are disrupting the market.

At the high end of the bank’s projected range, the 2026 hiring target would wind up being about 15% above the combined total number of revenue-generating bankers — such as relationship managers, mortgage advisors and trust and wealth advisors — hired last year by Pinnacle and Synovus Financial. Columbus, Georgia-based Synovus completed its merger with Pinnacle on New Year’s Day.

At the low end of the 2026 hiring range, the number of hires would be up by about 3.7% from last year, when the two banks hired a combined 217 revenue-generating bankers. Pinnacle, which has a history of outsize hiring supported by an incentive-pay model, hired 134 bankers, or 62% of the combined number.

“Disruption is our friend,” Pinnacle’s new CEO, Kevin Blair, told analysts during the bank’s earnings call. “We’re not hiring headhunters. We’re not taking applications on LinkedIn. It’s identifying who the best bankers are in each market and continuing to call on those bankers, and really emboldening ourselves and showing why this is the best platform for them.”

The Pinnacle-Synovus tie-up, which closed about five months after it was announced, has been viewed with some skepticism by investors because of a perception that mergers of equals have a spotty track record. The combined company has about $117 billion of assets, nearly double the previous asset size of each bank.

Blair, the former Synovus CEO, succeeded Terry Turner as Pinnacle’s president and chief executive. Turner now serves as chairman of the board’s holding company. Pinnacle Bank remains based in Nashville.

On Thursday’s call, Turner described the latest hiring goals as “pretty reasonable targets.” When asked if the bank is homing in on any specific geography to recruit bankers, Blair said it’s not.

The combined bank operates in nine states — Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Virginia, Kentucky and Maryland — many of which offer attractive growth prospects. Southeast markets have enticed banks like Fifth Third Bancorp, Huntington Bancshares and Truist Financial to pursue acquisitions or announce branch expansion plans.

Last week, PNC Financial Services Group CEO Bill Demchak commented on bank competition, saying the Pittsburgh-based bank is ready to go to battle with its peers for market share, including in the Southeast. “I don’t think anybody has an ability to defend home turf here,” Demchak said during the bank’s fourth-quarter earnings call. “We’re coming into your market.”

Much of Pinnacle’s first earnings call since the merger closed focused on the bank’s full-year outlook.

Loans at the end of 2026 are expected to be 9-11% higher than each bank’s combined loans at the end of last year. About 35% of the loan growth should come from relationship managers hired in the past three years, while another 35% should come from specialty businesses and the remaining 30% from longer-tenured relationship managers in legacy markets, Blair said.

Deposits by year-end are expected to total between $106.5 billion and $108.5 billion. As of Dec. 31, Pinnacle’s deposits were $47.4 billion, while Synovus’ were $51.3 billion, for a combined total of $98.7 billion.

Pinnacle, which has consistently ranked as one of American Banker’s Best Banks to Work For, expects to realize 40%, or $100 million, of annualized merger-related expense savings this year. The systems conversion will take place in March of 2027, the bank said.

Pinnacle’s stock price was down about 2% a percent as of midday Thursday.Pinnacle’s shares, which declined in the wake of the merger announcement, are down about 17% for the past 12 months.