Playing it safe pays off for one Tar Heel bank.

• Position: Mid-Market FAST 40

For more than 80 years, The East Carolina Bank was content with slowly expanding its territory in coastal North Carolina, branching out bit by bit from its base in Engelhard. But the finance world is different now, and so is ECB.

The community bank, which held $643 million in assets at the end of 2007, will pass the $1 billion mark in 2011 with the acquisition of seven branches of Norfolk, Va.-based Bank of Hampton Roads. It will finance the acquisition, which still needs regulatory approval, with $80 million in capital raised from six private investors, including Patriot Financial Partners LP of Philadelphia and New York-based Endicott Management Co.

"We're executing a plan of capital creation and capital raising and growth strategies to include acquisitions," ECB Chief Financial Officer Tom Crowder says. Future acquisitions could involve taking over a whole bank instead of a piece, something it's never done.

The growth spurt of ECB, a wholly owned subsidiary of Engelhard-based ECB Bankcorp Inc., started in 2008 when it aggressively expanded into new markets--Wilmington in particular. Assets at the end of 2008 were $842 million and about $924 million by the end of 2010. Revenue grew from $27 million in 2008 to $40 million in 2010, a 47% increase.

Crowder says revenue and assets were flat this year since North...