For longtime banker and avid thoroughbred racehorse owner Jerry Campbell, that gambit has paid off like a glorious day at the track.
Since buying rights to the HomeBanc name out of bankruptcy court and raising $45 million in a public offering two years ago, Campbell's Tampa-based institution has been on a tear.
The new HomeBanc's assets have jumped 84 percent since January, from $100 million to $184 million, and the company is on track to pass the $200 million mark by year-end. This year, it opened two more bay area branches — in Westchase and Belleair Bluffs — giving the bank four branches in Tampa, one in Orlando and one in Sarasota.
Some of its growth, Campbell said, came courtesy of Wachovia Corp. customers who defected before that troubled megabank was absorbed into Wells Fargo. "There's an old expression that there's not an ill wind that doesn't blow someone something good," he said.