NYSE: TFC
Key Data Points
Who is the owner of BB&T?
BB&T merged with SunTrust to create Truist Financial in 2019. The deal was announced in February 2019 and was called a "merger of equals," although BB&T was the official acquirer -- meaning that SunTrust investors received shares of BB&T stock after the deal was finalized.
Based on the initial terms of the deal, BB&T investors owned 57% of the combined bank after the deal was completed, while SunTrust investors owned the other 43%.
There were a few reasons why the deal materialized the way it did. For one thing, there were a lot of opportunities for cost synergies. Both were massive regional banks that operated in many of the same parts of the United States, and there was little reason to believe there would be any regulatory barriers to the deal. It was the largest merger between two U.S. banks since the 2007-09 financial crisis.
The deal was finalized in December 2019. The combined business has about 10 million households as customers. At the time of the deal, William Rogers, who was the CEO of SunTrust, became the leader of the combined business, which was renamed Truist. However, the full integration and re-branding took a couple of years.
Institutional Investor
Individual shareholders
There are generally three types of individual shareholders who have to publicly disclose their investments in a publicly traded company like Truist. These are institutional investors, investors who own more than 5% of the company, and the company's own directors and executive officers. As is common with large financial institutions, no individual shareholders own more than 5% of Truist Financial. With that in mind, here are the top five individual shareholders as reported in the company's latest regulatory filings:
- William H. Rogers, Jr. owns 1,168,706 shares of Truist, a stake valued at about $43 million as of April 2024. He is currently the CEO and board chairman for Truist and led SunTrust prior to the merger.
- Hugh Cummings owns 378,164 shares of Truist. He is the bank's vice chair and chief operating officer.
- Clarke Starnes owns 231,447 shares of Truist and is the bank's vice chair and chief risk officer.
- Michael Maguire owns 80,968 shares of Truist and serves as president and chief financial officer of the bank.
- Charles Patton owns 75,438 shares of Truist and is a member of the bank's board of directors.
Institutional investors
As you might expect, the largest shareholders of Truist are institutions -- specifically those who offer index funds to investors. Vanguard and BlackRock (BLK -0.41%) are the two largest owners of the bank stock. Here's a list of the top five:
- Vanguard owns 117,952,471 shares of Truist, an 8.8% stake in the financial institution.
- BlackRock (BLK -0.41%) owns 97,462,687 shares of Truist, a stake of about 7.3%.
- State Street (STT +1.23%) owns 62,359,468 shares of Truist, a stake of about 4.7%. Note that the first three institutions on this list own Truist through their index fund products.
- Mutual fund management company Dodge & Cox owns 52,173,840 shares of Truist, which is approximately 4% of the bank.
- Bank of America (BAC +1.29%) owns 25,918,489 shares of Truist, a roughly 1.9% stake in the bank.
Board of Trustees
How to invest in Truist Financial
Truist Financial is a publicly traded company, so you can invest in it by purchasing shares of its stock through a brokerage account.
If you don't already have a brokerage account, you'll need to open one to invest in stocks. First, check out some of the top online brokers and decide which company is the best fit for your investment goals and preferences.
Next, fill out the account application. You'll have to provide your Social Security number and other identifying information to open a brokerage account, and you'll also need to link a bank account or provide another source of funding. Once your account is open and you've added money to it, the procedure of investing in a bank stock like Truist, or any other company for that matter, is rather simple:
- Decide how much money you want to invest in Truist Financial.
- Get a stock quote (through your broker or a platform like CNBC or Yahoo Finance) to see the current share price.
- Divide the amount you'd like to invest by the current stock price. If your broker allows fractional share investing, this is the number of shares you'll buy. If it doesn't, you'll need to round down to the nearest whole number.
- Whether you want to place a limit order or a market order. The Motley Fool recommends using a market order since it guarantees you buy shares immediately at market price.
- Use your broker's order form (this is typically on the main screen after you log in) to enter a "buy" order for the number of shares you want to purchase.
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