Businessweek

BB&T Corporation operates as a financial holding company. The company conducts its business operations primarily through its commercial bank subsidiary, Branch Bank, and other nonbank subsidiaries. Operating Subsidiaries The principal operating subsidiaries of the company include the following: Branch Banking and Trust Company, Winston-Salem, North Carolina; BB&T Securities, LLC, Richmond, Virginia; Regional Acceptance Corporation, Greenville, North Carolina; American Coastal Insurance Company, Davie, Florida; and Sterling Capital Management, LLC, Charlotte, North Carolina. Branch Bank provides a range of banking and trust services for retail and commercial clients in its geographic markets, including small and mid-size businesses, public agencies, local governments and individuals, through 1,832 offices, as of December 31, 2012. Branch Bank’s principal operating subsidiaries include the following: BB&T Equipment Finance Corporation, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, which provides loan and lease financing to commercial and small businesses; BB&T Investment Services, Inc., a registered broker-dealer located in Charlotte, North Carolina, which offers clients non-deposit investment alternatives, including discount brokerage services, equities, fixed-rate, variable-rate and index annuities, mutual funds, government and municipal bonds, and money market funds; BB&T Insurance Services, Inc., headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, which offers property and casualty, life, health, employee benefits, commercial general liability, surety, title and other insurance products through its agency network; Prime Rate Premium Finance Corporation, Inc., located in Florence, South Carolina, and its subsidiary AFCO Credit Corporation, headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which provide insurance premium financing to clients in the United States and Canada; Grandbridge, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, which specializes in arranging and servicing commercial mortgage loans; Lendmark Financial Services, Inc., located in Covington, Georgia, which offers consumer loans to clients unable to meet Branch Bank’s normal credit underwriting guidelines; CRC Insurance Services, Inc., based in Birmingham, Alabama, which is a wholesale insurance broker authorized to do business nationwide; McGriff, Seibels & Williams, Inc., based in Birmingham, Alabama, which is authorized to do business nationwide and specializes in providing insurance products on an agency basis to large commercial and energy clients, including many Fortune 500 companies; and Crump Group, Inc., based in New Jersey, which is a wholesale insurance broker authorized to do business nationwide. Sheffield Financial, based in Clemmons, North Carolina, specializes in loans to small commercial lawn care businesses across the country for the purchase of outdoor power equipment and loans to individuals for power sport and leisure equipment. Nonbank Subsidiaries The company also has nonbank subsidiaries, including: BB&T Securities, LLC was formed by the merger of Scott & Stringfellow, LLC and Clearview Correspondent Services, LLC on January 1, 2013. BB&T Securities is a registered investment banking and full-service brokerage firm that provides services in retail brokerage, equity and debt underwriting, investment advice, corporate finance and equity research; and facilitates the origination, trading and distribution of fixed-income securities and equity products in both the public and private capital markets. It also has a public finance department that provides investment banking, financial advisory services and debt underwriting services to a variety of regional taxable and tax-exempt issuers. BB&T Securities also provides correspondent clearing services to other broker-dealers and entities involved in the securities industry. As a correspondent clearing firm, it provides clearing services to affiliated and unaffiliated broker-dealers; Regional Acceptance Corporation, which specializes in indirect financing for consumer purchases of primarily mid-model and late-model used automobiles; American Coastal Insurance Company, an admitt