North Dakota's largest bank is fueled by growth in Twin Cities

North Dakota-based Bell Bank, inspired by a decade of success in the Twin Cities, has opened a flagship downtown office in City Center in Minneapolis and added a retail-commercial facility to complement its big mortgage office at "Bell Plaza" off Interstate 494 in Bloomington.

The expansion comes amid a slowly reviving downtown.

"If we want to be 'the bank' in the Twin Cities we need a downtown office," said Bell Bank CEO Michael Solberg. "It still is the beating heart of commerce in the Twin Cities."

The Bell office commands a spacious, well-appointed space, as well as a patio that overlooks the corner of Seventh Street and Nicollet Mall.

The Fargo-based financier, founded in the 1960s, entered the Twin Cities through the 2012 acquisition of Bell Mortgage, which punched above its weight againstlarger Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank Mortgage and the former TCF.

After acquiring the mortgage company, State Bank changed its name to the catchier Bell.

Since 2012, Bell's profitability doubled to $10 billion in assets, surpassing the state-owned Bank of North Dakota as North Dakota's biggest banker.

Twin Cities assets have grown from $90 million to $2.6 billion and is now the 10th-largest bank in the Twin Cities area, according to the company and regulatory records. Bell has profitably grown assets by 15% annually, taking market share. Twin Cities employment has grown from 200 to about 550 since 2012.

"We never would have dreamed that we would be where are in the Twin Cities," said Solberg, 49, a veteran banker and in the second generation of one of two families that control the bank.

Bell is one of the largest family-owned banks in the country and expects record operating earnings of about $125 million this year. The company's equity capital, which tops $1 billion, has been bolstered by several hundred million dollars in one-time gains since 2019 from asset sales, including a software company it incubated, and the sale of deposits from its "health account" business for employers.

Bell executives believe that they can double the bank's size within seven years.

"Their secret sauce is that they've never forgotten their roots," said North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who opened an account at Bell while a student at North Dakota State University in the 1970s. "Banking is not just finance. It's about relationships. It starts for them with treating their employees right. And they treat customers right."

He applauded the bank's growth in the Twin Cities.

Burgum, 65, was a founder and CEO of Great Plains Software, a major, Fargo-based business that was sold to Microsoft in 2000. He also was a Fargo downtown redevelopment entrepreneur and venture capitalist before he was elected governor in 2016.

In an interview last week, Solberg, 49, and Todd Lee, 50, the company's executive vice president who heads banking and lending, said their No. 1 constituent is employees.

"We focus on happy employees and that results in happy customers," said Lee, an accountant and lawyer who Solberg hired away from a successful banking practice in 2010. "The numbers take care of themselves. The employees are the reason we are successful."

Richard Solberg, Michael's father, who retired as CEO in 2015, was the driver behind Bell's employee-driven culture. Bell pays competitively, promotes internally and provides bountiful career opportunities multiplied by its growth. It also launched an employee-stock plan in recent years.

Bell, which has also invested in Denver and Arizona, has hired many employees out of the consolidation and turbulence in the local banking trade, including at Wells Fargo and the former TCF.

Paul Bees, a 30-year veteran recruiter, most recently at Versique Search & Consulting, said Bell Bank is a quality employer and operator.

"They just want to do good business and serve the community," Bees said. "They do the things that make sense and a good profit. They hire excellent people and they keep them happy. For the most part, they empower employees to move up. When we go in the marketplace for them, it's an attractive sell for us."

Solberg said in addition to competitive compensation and fair treatment, the best investment the bank makes is giving everyone $1,000 a year for a charity of their choice. And when the bank crossed $5 billion in assets in 2018, it gave its 1,800 employees $5,000 in appreciation and asked them to share half of it with those in need. The company has invested about $20 million in the "pay it forward" initiative.

Bell's board and shareholders are publicly committed to an independent future. And the $1 billion-plus Bell has amassed in equity provides ample capital for Bell to economically expand in the Twin Cities and elsewhere, Solberg said. It doesn't need a bigger partner.

Solberg said family-owned Bell focuses on what's best for stakeholders five-to-10 years ahead. Not quarterly earnings.