Coca Cola's Original Formula Is In The SunTrust Safe In Atlanta

SunTrust is the largest ancillary of SunTrust Banks, Inc. In June of 2008, this bank had nearly $2,000,000,000 in assets. The SunTrust Bank head offices are located in Atlanta, GA, where they have been since the Eighteen-Nineties, as SunTrust's parent company began here. SunTrust Bank locations are all over the southern states. Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia are all states with branches. In this writing, we will offer more information and some brief history of SunTrust Bank.

The Farmer's Bank of Alexandria, Virginia was founded in 1811, and this was the earliest "parent" to the SunTrust Bank. The Farmer's Bank is the corporate version of the Trust Company of Georgia founded in 1891. For its first two years the Bank was originally called Commercial Traveler's Savings Banks. It then was renamed the Trust Company of Georgia. The SunTrust Bank of our modern times came about because of a corporate banking merger. The Trust Company of Georgia and SunBanks, from Florida became one and is operated as SunTrust Banks. Many branches of this bank did not switch over to the name SunTrust until 1995.

Coke and Suntrust have been cousins of sorts for years. After its consolidation in 1985, SunTrust Banks, Incorporated started to purchase other corporations and banking concerns. In 1986, SunTrust bought Third National Corporation of Tennessee. In 1998, SunTrust purchased Crestar Financial of Virgina and in 2001 SunTrust attempted to acquire Wachovia, but they were unsuccessful. Instead, Wachovia merged with another institution, First Union. In 2004, SunTrust bought the National Commerce Financial Corporation, which was based out of Memphis. They made this purchase for about $7,000,000,000. Once this addition was made, it gave SunTrust branches in both North and South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Georgia. SunTrust has more recently purchased GB&T Bancshares for just under $154,000,000. GB&T will now mainly be integrated into the SunTrust Atlanta, Georgia banking region. SunTrust has been working hard to strengthen its assets since its creation in 1985. As of now, there are reports going around that SunTrust may be acquired by a larger bank in the near future. There is no date that is set in stone when it will be known whether or not SunTrust will be taken over. And with the state-of-affairs the bank holding companies have become very conservative in their acquisitions. Right now the number one company secret in the world - the Coca-Cola Formula - resides in the SunTrust safe in Atlanta. SunTrust also puts its money where its mouth is - that is they own about 50 million shares of the Coke Company - another safe bet, recently the stock, even in this down market was selling in the high $40's - a nice chunk of money.

Coca-Cola, Suntrust, and its antecedents have had a long relationship. This goes as far back as right after World War I, when the Trust Company of Georgia was the initial public backer of the public offering for the stock of Coca-Cola Company. The Coca-Cola recipe is stored in a SunTrust safety deposit box in Atlanta. SunTrust still has made an investment in fifty million shares of Coca-Cola - a safe bet if history shows us anything. This is worth about $2.5 billion dollars to the company at recent Coca-Cola stock prices. Two of the top Coca-Cola executives also sit on the Board of Directors for SunTrust.

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