Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
Upcoming Event

Best Places to Work in Virginia

Hamburger Menu Hamburger Menu

Tag: finance

Finance | Insurance 2023: ELENA EDWARDS 

Edwards joined French travel insurance agency Allianz Partners in 2019 as general manager of the U.S. business unit. She was named CEO of Allianz Partners USA in June 2020 and took on the additional the role of regional CEO for North America in July 2021 before being appointed chief markets officer and a board member for the parent company in February 2022.

Allianz, which sells travel, health and life insurance, employed about 800 people in its Henrico headquarters as of last year.

An industry veteran, Edwards previously worked more than 30 years as an executive for General Electric and Genworth Financial. She served as senior vice president of Genworth’s long-term care insurance closed block business. She also worked as chief operating officer for the company’s U.S. life insurance division.

Edwards, who has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from Union College and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is a STEM advocate who serves as board vice president for the Science Museum of Virginia Foundation.

Finance | Insurance 2023: FREDRICK D. SCHAUFELD

After graduating from Lehigh University in 1981, Schaufeld took a job selling extended warranties to auto dealers. When he learned his employer hadn’t actually taken out policies on all his clients, Schaufeld went into business for himself, working directly with the insurance company and dealers.

That adventure led to Schaufeld launching N.E.W. Customer Services Companies Inc., which issued warranties for consumer products and later merged with phone warranty company Asurion.

Schaufeld went on to co-found investment firm SWaN & Legend, which has purchased stakes in businesses like healthy snack maker Kind LLC and Custom Ink T-shirts. He’s a partner in Monumental Sports & Entertainment, which owns the NBA’s Washington Wizards, the NHL’s Washington Capitals and the WNBA’s Washington Mystics.

A Lehigh University graduate, Schaufeld sits on the boards of the Inova Health Foundation and the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts. He and and his wife, Karen, created the Fredrick D. and Karen G. Schaufeld Family Foundation, which has provided more than $40 million to Northern Virginia health systems, among other philanthropic efforts. In March, he received a Horatio Alger Award from the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans.

Finance | Insurance 2023: JEAN STACK

In 2018, Stack, John Song and Alex Sevilla left the government services sector at California-based investment bank Houlihan Lokey to lead government services investment banking for Wisconsin-based Robert W. Baird & Co.

Stack had worked 23 years at Houlihan Lokey, where she was a founding member of its Aerospace, Defense & Government practice. Her team there executed more than 35 transactions with a total value of $6 billion between 2014 and 2017.

At Baird, Stack co-led the team that advised McLean-based management consultancy Guidehouse and its parent company, Veritas Capital, on the October 2022 acquisition of Grant Thornton’s public sector advisory practice. In December 2022, Baird served as financial adviser for Reston-based tech company Octo and parent company Arlington Capital Partners for IBM’s acquisition of Octo.

In 2023, Stack received her third Wash100 Award, which recognizes the region’s top 100 government contracting industry leaders, from Executive Mosaic. She is a Duke University graduate who also studied at the London School of Economics and is a Northern Virginia Technology Council board member.

Finance | Insurance 2023: LAWRENCE ‘LARRY’ DI RITA

Di Rita, who had already had an impressive 25-year career in the Navy and federal government, embarked on a second career as a banking executive when he joined Bank of America in 2006. He was named market president for Greater Washington, D.C., in 2019.

From 2001 to 2006, Di Rita served as special assistant to the secretary of defense and was also Defense Department spokesman and head of DoD’s Office of Public Affairs. From 1996 to 2001, Di Rita was legislative director and chief of staff for U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. He served as a naval officer from 1980 to 1993.

Di Rita has a bachelor’s degree from the U.S. Naval Academy and a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

He’s currently the Rumsfeld Foundation’s board secretary and a member of the U.S. Navy Memorial’s board of directors.

Bank of America posted $94.95 million in 2022 revenue, with $3.1 trillion in total assets. Over the past decade, Bank of America’s network has contracted almost in half to 3,800 branches, but its consumer deposits have almost doubled to $1 trillion. The bank is adding branches in four states, it announced in June.

More than bean counters

Chief financial officers have long been tasked with managing the fiscal responsibilities of companies — everything from financial planning to tracking cash flow. But increasingly, other C-suite executives and board members are relying on these finance experts for strategic and operational leadership.

In fact, an April 2022 report from global consulting firm McKinsey & Co. shows that the share of jobs reporting to CFOs continues to increase. This includes roles that would typically report to a CFO or controller — such as employees specializing in procurement, mergers and acquisitions, and investor relations. But now, cybersecurity, tech and risk management jobs are also likely to report to CFOs.

CFOs at Virginia-based companies and organizations are certainly experiencing this trend.

“I don’t think CFOs just sit in the corner silently waiting to say the word ‘budget,’ like was the case 20 years ago,” says Don Halliwill, CFO and executive vice president for the Roanoke-based Carilion Clinic health system. “We’re a lot more involved on the operational side.”

Particularly as a nonprofit, Carilion has to be focused on planning for future financial needs — looking ahead as far as 20 years down the road, Halliwill says. It also has to be focused on reinvesting income into new facilities, one example being Carilion’s 2021 $50 million renovation of a 150,000-square-foot JCPenney store at Tanglewood Mall into a children’s pediatric medicine center.

“So how has my role changed?” Halliwill questions. “Well, instead of just thinking in the box, leadership is thinking about how we can meet the capital needs of the organization. We’d never done that before.”

CFOs also have been tasked with tracking ESG — environmental, social and corporate governance efforts, says Stephanie Peters, president and CEO of the Virginia Society of CPAs, a professional organization representing about 13,000 certified public accountants in Virginia. “It’s many of the CPAs and the accounting departments that are responsible for tracking different elements of ESG and reporting on how that company is doing,” Peters explains.

While CFOs now may be expected to participate in a more expanded role, being tasked with more operational and strategic roles makes sense in context of their roles, says Clyde Cornett, CFO and executive vice president of Richmond-based community development financial institution Virginia Community Capital.

Delta Dental of Virginia has begun using AI tools to assist with operations and accounting, including processing accounts payable reports, says the company’s CFO, Jim Barker. Photo by Don Petersen

“We’ve always been expected to play a role for the CEO and the board as [a] consultant adviser working on strategy,” he says. “But more and more I’m finding that I’m being asked to play that role with the business lines as well as a little bit deeper in the organization, which I think is good. I think most CFOs are natural problem solvers.”

But while some CFOs may be comfortable with their expanded roles and expectations, there are new challenges and trends facing corporate finance and accounting jobs, namely the growing talent gap for CPAs and the implementation of artificial intelligence and other new technologies.

Talent gap

In 2019, the accounting industry peaked in terms of the number of employed accountants and auditors, according to the Controllers Council, a professional organization that provides educational resources and programming for controllers, CFOs, accountants and auditors.

But ever since its peak, the number of employed accountants and auditors has dropped a staggering 17%, according to a Bloomberg Tax analysis. Meanwhile, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projections show that there will be more than 136,000 open accounting and auditing positions each year until 2031.

“Staffing talent is still the No. 1 concern. … CPA firms, as well as finance departments on the corporate side, are all feeling the strain of needing talent,” Peters confirms. Some of the major challenges in recruiting for and retaining accounting talent include barriers to entry such as the extra credit hours required to become a CPA — a bachelor’s degree typically requires 120 credit hours, but to qualify for CPA certification, candidates need 150 credit hours.

“Talent is hard to find,” says Jim Barker, CFO of Roanoke-based dental care insurer Delta Dental of Virginia. “When you find that, you don’t want to let it go.”

Securing talent can also be especially challenging for nonprofits, which often can’t afford to match the higher salaries or better benefits of large corporations that hire CPAs. The median salary for accountants and auditors is about $77,000, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, but CPAs who work for large companies like McLean-based Capital One Financial Corp. can make over $100,000, according to Glassdoor.

“It’s a really competitive market right now and it is very hard,” Cornett says. “Even just in Virginia, it’s very hard for us to compete for finance talent with somebody like Capital One just right down the street because they have more resources.”

But something else might shake up the talent gap and even further alter the role of CFOs, CPAs and accountants: the implementation of artificial intelligence and other technologies in accounting practices.

Accounting for AI

Many entry-level or early-career accounting jobs focus on accounts receivable and accounts payable functions, which are focused on outstanding bills and invoices for the company. These processes, however, are largely repetitive and are therefore vulnerable to takeover by artificial intelligence or other automated technologies, CFOs agree.

Richmond-based Markel Food Group, which provides automated food equipment and consulting services to food processing companies, hasn’t yet implemented AI for these tasks, but the company’s CFO and executive vice president, Cindy Yao, is definitely taking note. Eventually, she says, “some of the more routine or repetitive work probably will be pretty much taken over by bots or other types of automation capabilities.”

Delta Dental of Virginia has already started using AI tools to help with operations and accounting, including processing accounts payable reports, Barker says. “They sound small, but those are some pretty high-volume transactions that are just sort of nuisances, and we can have people doing something a little bit higher level that they may enjoy more,” Barker says.

Other finance executives have used AI to save time by drafting emails and correspondence and even performance review templates, Peters says.

And with more CFOs taking on leadership for company tech needs ranging from IT to cybersecurity, financial chiefs are faced with the challenge of figuring out whether to invest in emerging technologies like AI, Halliwill says.

“It’s become more difficult from a financial perspective as the CFO to determine the right timing for investing in technology,” he says. “You invest in something, and by the time you get it implemented and paid for, there’s the next generation. But you can’t wait forever and not make any investments.”

There has also been concern that AI implementation in accounting and finance positions is also contributing to the talent gap in finance departments. Some college students may already be choosing different career paths out of fear that accounting jobs are vulnerable to being taken over by AI.

But college students also are hearing horror stories from current finance workers about heavy workloads and little to no work-life balance, and Peters is hopeful that AI may provide some help by automating rote tasks.

“These types of technologies can alleviate that and start to change the narrative and say, ‘Wow, we’re using tools that make grunt work go much faster,’” Peters says. “‘Now we can learn and do higher-value types of services and not be there so long … and have a life.’”

As technology plays a growing role in the workforce, Barker says, a focus on mental health, work-life balance and adapting to hybrid or remote work will be critical in gaining and retaining accounting talent in corporate finance departments.

Mental health “is our biggest challenge right now,” Barker says of finance departments. “The challenge is connecting or reconnecting with others — our teams,
customers, new team members, etc. — in this ‘new norm’ of hybrid and remote workforce. The mental health aspect is definitely real and dangerous because the potential harm is not overt.” 

Read about Virginia Business’ 2023 Virginia CFO of the Year award winners: 

Large business | Cindy Yao, executive vice president and CFO, Markel Food Group

Small business | Jason Chesky, CFO, Logenix International LLC

Small nonprofit | Clyde Cornett, CFO, Virginia Community Capital

Large nonprofit | Jim Barker, CFO, Delta Dental of Virginia

Surge of credit card defaults ahead?

Americans owe an all-time high of nearly $1 trillion on their credit cards, setting the stage for a possible surge in consumer delinquencies and defaults.

“There are nascent signs of trouble brewing,” investment firm Glenmede Trust Co. warned in an April research note. “An ever–larger share of credit balances have transitioned to early stages of delinquency, consistent with past periods of recession.”

Lenders are feeling the losses, including McLean-based Capital One Financial Corp. The credit card giant reported a 60% drop in profits to $960 million in the first quarter from the same period a year ago, largely due to customers defaulting on their credit cards and car loan debts.

Like other large banks, Capital One is pumping up provisions for credit losses, as it set aside $2.8 billion in the first quarter, up from $677 million in the year-earlier period.

Not only are more customers at least 30 days late on their payments (at Capital One, 3.66% of total U.S. card holders in the first quarter were late, up from 2.32% a year ago), but companies are racking up more for write-offs — debts they never expect to collect (4.04% of total loans in the first quarter, up from 2.12% a year ago at Capital One).    

Capital One CEO Richard Fairbank told analysts in April that he “feels very good about the business,” given that defaults remain low by historic standards. However, he stated, profits could take another hit this year as rising delinquencies segue into actual losses.

Americans are piling on debt in the face of high inflation and rising interest rates.

Total credit card debt surged $61 billion at the end of last year to a record $986 billion and stayed at that level through the first quarter of this year, surpassing the pre-pandemic high of $927 billion, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Auto loan balances increased by $10 billion in the first quarter. 

Consumers typically pay down debt in January after the holidays, but not this year.

“Rising living costs and stagnating wages caused savings to decline, creating excess demand for credit card debt,” financial analyst Harrison Schwartz writes in a March report on financial news site “Seeking Alpha.”

“Initially, this situation was great for Capital One as demand for its products rose,” Schwartz continues. “However, the rapid decline in consumer sentiment and savings over the past year has caused default rates and expected loan losses to increase.”

In all, 46% of U.S. cardholders carry balances from month to month, up from 39% last year, according to January data, the most recent, from financial information provider Bankrate.com.

The average credit card balance per consumer this year is $5,733, up 14.4% from a year earlier, according to credit reporting agency TransUnion.

“We’re seeing three big trends with respect to credit card debt,” says Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst with Bankrate.com. “More people are carrying more debt and that debt costs more than ever (an average APR of 20.37%), the highest since we started measuring in 1985.”

Also, it’s the first time in the central bank’s 20-year report on household debt that credit balances failed to fall during the first quarter, which “could foreshadow trouble for later in the year,” Rossman says.

Interest rates likely will remain high for the foreseeable future, he adds, saying, “My top tip would be to sign up for a 0% balance transfer credit card (still widely available).”

The economic story facing consumers is straightforward, Schwartz says. “Rising living costs and excessive consumer spending on credit have caused many households to suffer significant declines in stability.”  

Building equity

When BB&T recruited Thomas Ransom, a Black economics student at Hampden-Sydney College, to join its management development program in the late 1990s, he quickly had to pick up the world of banking and its culture. 

The Urbanna native says he’d never met a banker before starting at BB&T and certainly didn’t know what moves to make to climb the corporate ladder. He had no one in his family he could talk to about work. But he leaned into his differences, forged professional relationships and learned how to “get comfortable being different.”

Today, as Virginia regional president for Truist Financial Corp. — the Charlotte, North Carolina-based megabank formed in 2019 by the merger of BB&T Corp. and SunTrust Banks Inc. — it’s important to Ransom that Truist helps people who look like him succeed.

“If you haven’t been in that environment, or [you are] in a room where you’re the only one that looks like yourself, it can be a challenge,” he says. 

Since 2020, after nationwide outrage following the police murder of George Floyd, a Black man living in Minneapolis, the banking and credit union industry — like much of corporate America — has taken a critical look at itself and how it can broaden its reach in terms of racial and ethnic diversity. Progress has been made, both in leadership positions as well as across the workforce, but in an industry that has been historically run by white male executives, there’s still work to be done, industry executives acknowledge.

In Virginia, three of the largest nation’s banks have Black men as market leaders — Ransom at Truist; Jermaine Johnson, Greater Washington, D.C., and Virginia regional president for Pittsburgh-based PNC Bank; and Victor Branch, Richmond market president for Charlotte-based Bank of America Corp.

“Companies that are more diverse in their workforce and their management … tend to perform better,” says Virginia Bankers Association President and CEO Bruce Whitehurst. “It’s a smart thing.”

A 2020 study from global management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found companies in the top quartile for ethnic and cultural diversity on their executive teams were 36% more profitable than those in the bottom quartile. 

Being intentional

Whether establishing talent pipelines at universities, internal leadership development programs or cultural changes, banks and credit unions are working to broaden their workforces. 

“I have seen the industry grow and evolve and change and move in the right direction,” says Branch, adding that Bank of America’s leadership is “committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workspace.” 

Bank of America’s 14-person board now includes five women and two Black men. Additionally, 55% of the bank’s national management team includes women and people of color, up from 50% in 2020. About 50% of its workforce of about 217,000 are women. And 49% of the overall workforce is racially or ethnically diverse, up from 45% in 2020, according to the bank’s 2022 annual report.

At Truist, Ransom has played a key role in establishing scholarships, internships and other partnerships with historically Black colleges and universities, such as Virginia State University, where he delivered the fall 2022 commencement speech.

Truist has set a goal of increasing female leadership by 20% and ethnically diverse representation in leadership by 20% by 2025. Additionally, it has set a goal of raising its percentage of ethnically diverse senior leaders to 17.2%.

The bank’s 21-member board of directors of 14 men and seven women includes two Black men, two Black women and one Hispanic woman. In 2021, Truist’s workforce was 62.8% white, 18.7% Black, 10% Hispanic and 5.7% Asian, according to data analytics consultancy GlobalData. Women in 2021 made up 63.5% of all Truist workers but only 28.6% of senior leadership, up from 22.1% in 2019.

PNC Financial Services Group Inc. also is focused on increasing diversity.

In 2020, PNC held two major leadership forums, convening hundreds of the company’s Black executives, during which the company set goals, such as hiring a corporate social responsibility officer.

After the forums, PNC provided more opportunities for mentoring and advocacy and became “more intentional around giving people of diverse backgrounds an opportunity,” Johnson says. Of the leaders who attended the first forum, 25% have been promoted in the past three years, Johnson says, calling it a “real, tangible result” of the bank’s intentions — and success — in diversifying its leadership. 

“The word that stood out to me is ‘intentionality,’” he adds. “I think all of our leaders need to be intentional … [to] broaden the workforce, broaden the experience of people who contribute to our effort each and every day.”

In November 2022, PNC’s board established its Special Committee on Equity and Inclusion to assist with oversight of management’s equity and inclusion efforts, externally and internally.

PNC’s 12-member board, which has four female directors, is 25% racially or ethnically diverse, with members including one Black woman, one Hispanic man and one Indian woman. (Another Black director, former Microsoft Corp. executive Toni Townes-Whitly, stepped down from the board this year after she became CEO-elect for Reston-based Fortune 500 government contractor SAIC Inc.)

PNC’s workforce diversity increased slightly from 2020 to 2021, according to a filing with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In 2021, the bank’s 58,599-person workforce was 59.58% female, with a diversity mix of 65.6% white, 14.8% Black, 10.7% Hispanic and 6.4% Asian in 2021. The year before, PNC had more than 7,000 fewer workers, and its diversity mix was 70.2% white, 14.2% Black, 6.83% Hispanic and 6.3% Asian.

By comparison, the largest bank headquartered in Virginia, McLean-based Capital One Financial Corp., has three Black male directors and three women on its 12-person board. Women made up just under 51% of its 55,943-person workforce in 2022. Capital One’s workforce diversity profile last year was 48.5% white, 20.3% Asian, 18.4% Black and 9.5% Hispanic. The bank’s percentage of Asian employees rose from 18.66% in 2020, while other demographics remained essentially flat.

In 2021, Capital One won numerous national awards recognizing its diversity, inclusion and belonging efforts, including support for workers with disabilities, veterans, LGBTQ+ employees, people of color, women and millennials. The credit card giant’s outreach efforts that year included increased partnerships with HBCUs and expansion of a program aimed at engaging first-generation college students with skills-building.

Reflecting communities

Community banks and credit unions also are stepping up diversity efforts, with many, like Suffolk-based TowneBank, creating internal councils devoted to promoting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. 

“We recognize that the look of banking in general was that of white men, and so, [it was] really saying we are going to … [focus] on why aren’t we attracting a diverse representation to the bank,” says Denise Counce, the bank’s senior vice president and diversity and inclusion officer. 

While there is progress being made, bank officials know there’s still much work to do. At the end of 2022, about 16% of TowneBank’s workforce was racially diverse, up from 15% in 2021, according to a bank proxy report.

In 2020, Newport News-based BayPort Credit Union created a DEI council “to ensure that workplace diversity and inclusion is understood,” says CEO Jim Mears. The credit union also has an employee experience specialist who runs programs in leadership development, a mentoring program and guides education sessions about personal and professional development.

BayPort’s leadership and workforce is becoming more diverse, Mears notes. The bank’s 11-member board is more than 45% racially diverse. Employees of color rose this year to 210 out of 508, or 41%, up from 163, or about 35%, in 2020. Promotions among people of color have increased as well, with more than 50% of promotions going to employees of color this year, up from 27% of 41 promotions in 2018.  

Bank workers should reflect the communities they serve, says John Asbury, CEO of Richmond-based Atlantic Union Bankshares Corp.

Atlantic Union had a DEI program before 2020, but after George Floyd’s death, it became clear that it wasn’t enough, Asbury says, so the bank created a DEIB council (the ‘B’ is for belonging), which he chairs. The council manages the bank’s efforts to create a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace.

Just one of Atlantic Union’s 12 directors is racially or ethnically diverse, according to its 2023 proxy statement. While the bank has not made its workforce demographics public, Asbury says it’s making progress, but acknowledges, “This is a journey.”  

Virginia Business Editor Richard Foster contributed to this story.

Atlantic Union to acquire American National Bank

Updated 4:15 p.m. July 25

Richmond-based Atlantic Union Bank’s parent company announced Tuesday that it has entered into an agreement to acquire American National Bankshares Inc., which is headquartered in Danville and is the holding company of American National Bank and Trust Co. The combined bank will have total assets of $23.7 billion as of June 30, according to the statement.

Atlantic Union Bankshares Inc. and American National expect to complete the merger in the first quarter of 2024, and both banks’ boards of directors have approved the deal. Two members of American National’s board — Carilion Clinic CEO Nancy Howell Agee and Virginia Furniture Market President Joel R. Shepherd — will join Atlantic Union’s board.

Jeff Haley, American National’s chairman, president and CEO, will “assist in the integration of the two companies and advise on the combined bank’s regional community banking model” in the bank’s locations in Southern and Southwest Virginia, as well as represent the merged bank in two Danville-based charitable trusts, the announcement said.

The combined bank will have total deposits of $19.1 billion and gross loans of $17.3 billion.

In a Tuesday afternoon news conference, John C. Asbury, president and CEO of Atlantic Union, said he expects the systems conversion to take place in May 2024, if the deal closes early next year as expected.

Over the next few months, Atlantic Union will assess the staffing and branches it will take on as part of the American National purchase, Asbury said, but that he wasn’t prepared yet to say how many American National employees’ jobs will be cut as a result.

He noted there is some overlap of the two banks’ branch locations in the Roanoke and Rocky Mount areas in which they are located so close to each other, “it makes no sense to have two branches operating. There will be some degree of [staffing] impact,” Asbury said, but with those “pretty limited” examples of overlapping branches, “we certainly are not interested in limiting convenience” and closing more branches. He also said that there are no plans to close American National’s Danville headquarters, where Haley expects to maintain an office, although those staff numbers will be part of Atlantic Union’s assessment.

Haley noted that the merger comes at a time when smaller community banks are merging with other banks. “There’s been a massive digital transformation in the industry,” he said Tuesday afternoon. “I believe that the model of what we do as a $3 billion community bank has changed. The foot traffic is down considerably since COVID. It has been a massive change in how people use banking services.”

Asbury added that he believes the pandemic accelerated digital banking, such as photographing checks and depositing funds digitally, or conducting Zoom appointments with branch staffers. “This industry isn’t going away, but there are going to be fewer of us.”

American National, which was founded in 1909, has 26 branches in Virginia and North Carolina and is Virginia’s ninth largest bank. It had $3.1 billion in assets as of June 30. Atlantic Union is the largest community bank headquartered in Virginia, with 109 branches, $20.6 billion in assets and $15.7 billion in deposits as of June 30. (McLean-based Capital One Financial Corp. is the largest bank headquartered in Virginia, with $38.37 billion in 2022 revenue and $467.8 billion in total assets.)

Under the agreement, each outstanding share of American National common stock will be converted into the right to receive 1.35 shares of Atlantic Union common stock, which would place the value of the transaction at $416.8 million, or $39.23 per share, based on Atlantic Union’s 10-day weighted average closing stock price ending Monday.

“American National is a high-quality community bank with an exceptional 114-year history, a strong core deposit base and outstanding asset quality,” Asbury said in a statement earlier Tuesday. “This is a company and leadership team we have long admired and know well, and the relationship between our two banks spans decades. We expect that our combined footprint will bring additional convenience to our customers and position us as an even stronger competitor against the large national, super-regional and smaller community banks. Increasing our presence in Roanoke and entering Southside Virginia will further build out our Virginia franchise, and the transaction will also allow us to gain meaningful entry into North Carolina’s attractive Piedmont Triad region and Raleigh. With a more diversified deposit base, expected synergies and enhanced growth market opportunities, we believe the combined franchise will be able to generate a higher level of financial performance for our shareholders.”

Piper Sandler & Co. is acting as financial adviser to Atlantic Union, and Covington & Burling LLP is acting as its legal adviser in the transaction. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc. is acting as financial adviser to American National, and Williams Mullen is acting as its legal adviser in the transaction.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described Atlantic Union as the largest bank headquartered in Virginia. Atlantic Union is the largest of Virginia’s community banks, but the largest bank headquartered in Virginia is McLean-based Fortune 500 bank Capital One Financial Corp.

Alexandria’s QED Investors raises $925M for two new funds

Alexandria-based fintech venture capital firm QED Investors raised $925 million for two new funds, QED announced Tuesday.

The funding comes from two capital commitments: a $650 million oversubscribed early stage fund and a $275 million early growth stage fund, according to a news release from QED, a key investor in San Francisco-based personal finance company Credit Karma and Brazilian banking company Nubank. The funds will allow the firm to “continue to invest in disruptive fintech companies in the U.S., the U.K., Europe, Latin America, India, Southeast Asia and Africa,” according to the release.

“We are excited, fortunate and privileged to be a steward of our investors’ capital,” QED Investors Managing Partner and co-founder Nigel Morris said in a statement. “We don’t take that responsibility lightly, especially in this difficult market.

In September 2021, QED announced it had closed on a seventh oversubscribed fund with capital commitments of $1.05 billion. In 2020, the firm secured $350 million in funding.

Morris and Frank Rotman, both involved in starting Capital One Financial Corp., founded QED Investors in 2007. QED has  invested in more than 200 fintech companies, including 28 unicorn companies. With the two new funds, QED will have more than $4 billion under management, according to the firm.

Paymerang acquires Aussie AI data platform

Chesterfield County-based payment and invoice automation company Paymerang LLC has acquired Australian-based artificial intelligence data extraction and analysis platform Sypht and the assets of KwikTag, an invoice automation company, Paymerang announced Tuesday.

Paymerang acquired both from Tempe, Arizona-based tech firm enChoice Inc. Terms of the deals were not disclosed and the acquisitions were completed April 3.

KwikTag offers a cloud-based automation solution to clients across multiple industries and creates a fully-integrated Microsoft Dynamics document manager and workflow platform for accounting teams. Sypht developed an AI-powered data extraction platform. Sypht and KwikTag are software as a service-based products. KwikTag customers will receive immediate access to Paymerang’s payment automation software. 

The acquisitions adds a proprietary AI platform and other products to Paymerang’s offerings, as well as giving the company an international presence in more than 25 companies, according to Paymerang.

Vienna-based private equity firm Aldrich Capital Partners invested $26 million in Paymerang in 2018 and another $10 million in 2021. Since 2018, Paymerang’s revenue has grown 40% annually and it has expanded its operations, new product development, sales and marketing.

“I’m excited to welcome the KwikTag and Sypht teams to the Paymerang family,” Paymerang CEO Nasser Chanda said in a statement. “Not only do we share the same values and passion for our customers, but our solutions and industry verticals are highly complementary.”

Founded in 2010, Paymerang announced plans to expand its operations to Southwest Virginia in August 2022, creating 50 jobs.

Before the acquisitions, Paymerang had 240 employees and now it will have 280.