By Rebecca Ungarino
Climate First Bancorp, a small St. Petersburg, Fla., lender with $1.3 billion of assets, has hired bankers from Piper Sandler to explore an initial public offering in what would mark a rare public-market debut by a U.S. bank.
Climate First Chief Executive Officer Lex Ford said in an interview the firm plans to go public in 2026 or 2027. Offering shares on the public market would help fund acquisitions as part of its growth strategy to reach $10 billion of assets by 2031, he said.
The bank specializes in financing solar-panel projects and has 141 employees. The bank reported $3.3 million of net income on $37.6 million of revenue for the first six months of 2025, filings show.
Ford, who joined the bank shortly after its founding in 2021, said he was interested in the IPO route instead of pursuing a sale because of his experience with an earlier bank acquisition. Prior to Climate First he was an executive at First Green Bank, which had $800 million in assets when Seacoast Banking Corp. of Florida bought it for $115 million in 2018.
"What we experienced at the last bank on a sale was -- every bit of our mission, backing, planning, was immediately gone at sale," Ford told Barron's this month.
Ford said that if he "could decide, we would never sell." The "board, shareholders, and executive team are all on board with that 'no plan to sell' mentality," he added.
Climate First faces challenges as it expands. It is operating as a climate-conscious financial firm as swaths of investors and Republican officials criticize efforts by banks and asset managers to incorporate environmental and social considerations into their activities and investment processes.
At the same time, solar financing, one of Climate First's core businesses, could be threatened by reduced demand stemming from the Trump administration eliminating tax-credit incentives to install solar panels. The Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group, lowered its base-case outlook for total solar deployments between 2025 and 2030 by 4%.
Ford said Climate First has "never depended on the tax credit to build or grow its solar business -- unlike many of the now-defunct fintechs in the space." The business has benefited from residential customer demand in advance of the tax credits expiring, but he said sunsetting the credits is "terrible policy" from an industry perspective.
"The federal government should be investing in America's renewable energy independence and resilience, not undermining it," Ford added.
About one-third of the bank's overall loan portfolio is solar loans by both consumers and commercial borrowers. Its commercial and industrial loan portfolio includes commercial solar and battery storage, employee stock-ownership plans, and traditional term loans and credit lines.
For the months of June, July, August, and through mid-September, Climate First originated $22.5 million, $25 million, $32.7 million, and $29.7 million in solar loans, respectively, according to the company.
Climate First would join a relatively small group of banks that have chosen to pursue an IPO in the last four decades. Just 4% of the 16,189 companies to go public in the U.S. between 1980 and 2024 were banks and thrift institutions, according to data from Jay Ritter, a professor of finance at the University of Florida and an expert on IPO markets.
Of the 2,054 IPOs between 2020 and 2024, just 19 were banks, Ritter's data show. Three banks have gone public in the U.S. this year, according to data provider Dealogic: Grande Group and Waton Financial, which listed on the Nasdaq, and Northpointe Bancshares, which started trading on the New York Stock Exchange in February.
There is at least one other in the works. Earlier this week, Commercial Bancgroup, which has $2.3 billion in assets and operates in Tennessee, Kentucky, and North Carolina, said it was launching an IPO.
Climate First is the third bank founded by Ken LaRoe, who is now the CEO of Climate First's holding company and executive chairman of the board. In 1999, LaRoe founded Florida Choice Bank and sold it to an Alabama-based banking group for $110 million in 2006. He later founded First Green in 2009 with the aim of promoting environmental sustainability through its offerings.
In LaRoe's view, that deal soured. His personal website says selling it "broke his heart, especially since the acquiring bank did not continue any of the values proposition and his co-workers' lives were completely upended."
Seacoast didn't respond to a request for comment.
Write to Rebecca Ungarino at rebecca.ungarino@barrons.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
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September 26, 2025 00:30 ET (04:30 GMT)
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