The bank job: disaster. Perseverance. Disappointment. Redemption. North American Financial Holdings Inc. 's ascent from abstract business plan to the state's fifth-largest financial institution in less than a year has the narrative arc of a blockbuster movie, and we've provided the storyboards.

• Author: Foley, Tim
• Position: FEATURE

1. December 2007. Gene Taylor retires as vice chairman and president of global corporate and investment banking of Charlotte-based Bank of America Corp. following his division's 93% drop in year-over-year third-quarter profit.

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2. Mid-November 2009. Over lunch in New York with Chris Marshall, another former BofA executive, he hatches a plan to create a holding company that will sift through the ashes of the financial crisis for undercapitalized and failed banks.

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3. Late November 2009. Taylor, Marshall and a newly assembled team travel to London, New York, San Francisco and elsewhere seeking investors. They raise nearly $1 billion for acquisitions and charter NAFH, based for regulatory purposes in Miami but operating out of Charlotte.

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4. May 2010. Two bids by NAFH fail to win banks shuttered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

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5. July 2010. At the airport in Fort Myers, Fla., where they've flown to buy TIB Financial Corp., Taylor and Marshall get a call from the FDIC: NAFH has won three failed banks--two in Florida, one in South Carolina. In a weekend, assets zoom from zero to $3 billion, including the TIB...