Trident's point.

• Author: Speizer, Irwin
• Position: Trident Financial Corp.

BNC's first Small Business of the Year is the nation's No. 1 thrift shifter.

Monday afternoon finds William M. Moore Jr. in the fourth-floor corner office at Trident Financial Corp., his Raleigh-based investment-banking business. Chatting up a client on the phone, his voice echoes from his open door down the still hallway.

A stroll down the corridor reveals why things are so quiet. First office: empty. Second office: empty. Same for the third and fourth. Only a handful of people are at their desks this afternoon.

Conclusion: Business is booming.

Trident's corps of young investment bankers are on the road, which means the deals are humming. In mid-August, Trident had 12 deals in the works around the nation. Trident specializes in converting mutual savings and loans into stock corporations by selling shares primarily to local investors.

Moore and his associates have become so adept at the arcane business of thrift conversions that Trident is now a national leader in the specialty. SNL Securities, a Charlottesville, Va.-based financial-database and publishing company, traditionally lists Trident as No. 1 in number of thrift deals.

That makes Trident a player in an investment-banking community ruled by Wall Street giants. Trident regularly ranks among the top 15 companies in the country in number of new public offerings, though its deals are typically tiny compared with those on Wall Street. "We are up there with Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch," says managing director R. Lee Burrows Jr. According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Goldman, Sachs & Co. is No. 1 in number of new public stock offerings through July this year. Trident is No. 11, just ahead of Salomon Brothers.

Because it has proved a little company can compete in the big leagues, Trident has won the first North Carolina Small Business of the Year competition, sponsored by BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA and PHP Inc., the Greensboro-based HMO. Trident, which employs 29, estimates revenue of $11.2 million for the first six months of 1996. That's up from $7.1 million for all of last year.

"What I found out is that to be good and small, you have to specialize," Moore says. "One of the hardest things to do is to understand what you are good at and then to focus yourself."

Erskine Bowles, managing director of the new Charlotte merchant bank Carousel Capital, regards Trident as a textbook example of how to run a small financial-services company. Former head of the U.S. Small Business Administration, Bowles was a judge in the competition, along with Steve Leeolou, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Greensboro-based Vanguard Cellular Systems Inc., and BNC Editor and Publisher David Kinney.

"I think they know what they are, and they know what their market is," Bowles says. "They've made a decision to remain small, and it is a smart decision on their part." To succeed, Trident had to build a trained staff, carve out a niche, project the level of accomplishment and expertise of a much larger firm and take nervy risks.

And it's savvy enough to realize that nothing lasts forever. As its market matures, Trident is exploring other investment-banking avenues. It recently completed an offering for a Louisiana health-services company by selling the stock primarily to doctors who are members of the state medical association. Trident figures that health-care stock offerings sold primarily to doctors could be the next boutique investment-banking niche.

Moore is also trying to secure the company's future by sharing ownership with younger associates to keep them loyal and committed. A few years ago, Moore owned more than 80% of the firm. He has since divvied up the pie so that he is one of four managing directors who each control 20%. The remaining 20% is shared by three other senior executives.

At Trident, senior is a relative term. The youthful-looking Moore is the old sage at 56. The next-oldest is 43. The rest are under 40. When Moore was building the company, he sought bright and energetic newcomers who could not only grasp the potential of the methods he was pioneering but also sell the concept to clients.

Moore fell into his specialty almost by accident. But once he found it, he moved aggressively. A native of Goldsboro, he attended the Naval Academy, then earned an M.B.A. at UNC Chapel Hill. His first job was in Washington with Legg Mason Wood Walker investment bank, where he rose to head of research and analysis. By the mid-1970s, he was ready for a new challenge. Like most ambitious young investment bankers, he felt the pull of New York but contemplated the prospect of life in the big city with a mixture of longing and loathing. Ultimately, the Big Apple lost. "I just couldn't bring myself to go to New York," he says.

An old friend was living in New Bern and suggested he come home to North Carolina. So Moore left Washington for New Bern. His plan was to set up an office overlooking the water and work as a consultant. He started his one-man outfit in 1975 without a clear direction, but serendipity intervened. His background had brought him to the attention of mutual thrifts trying to raise capital by converting to public stock ownership. Before making an offering, they had to produce a thorough financial analysis that met federal securities standards. But most S&Ls trying to convert were small and unsophisticated, so the major investment banks were not particularly eager to take them on as clients.

Moore got the chance to do an appraisal when Legg Mason called asking if he would do...