At S.C.’s oldest – and now only – chartered trust company, two father-and-son teams are in it for the long haul
It’s not every day that a company turns 100 years old.
Colonial Trust Company, which has offices in both Greenville and Spartanburg (along with Charleston and a newly announced Columbia location), celebrated its 100-year anniversary in style last week at the BMW Zentrum Center.
The invitation-only event featured high-profile speakers Gov. Nikki Haley and C. Bruce Johnstone, managing director and senior marketing investment strategist of Fidelity Investments, who presented about 250 customers, friends and associates with an overview of worldwide economic factors and investment strategies.
The oldest, and now the only, state chartered trust company in South Carolina, Colonial Trust was established Aug. 2, 1913, by Spartanburg businessmen R.B. Cleveland, Thomas Screven and Julian Calhoun at a time when Spartanburg was transforming from a poor farming community to a booming textile manufacturing center.
The Cleveland family remained involved with the company over 75 years until 1989, when current owners H. Walter Barre and Barry D. Wynn acquired the business from Jesse Franklin Cleveland.
Barre and Wynn, both Spartanburg natives, have known each other from childhood. The duo had already worked together for 13 years at the Robinson-Humphrey Company as financial consultants before purchasing Colonial, and said they wanted to build something of their own to better serve clients.
“There was very little active business at Colonial Trust at the time,” said Barre, but the two men saw potential in the solid reputation and long-term relationships the company had established. In fact, Colonial has managed one of its trusts since 1923 from a client who set it up to provide indigent care at what is now Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System.
The original goal of the company was to manage and administer trusts along with conducting insurance, mortgage and wealth management for their clients. That broad charter has allowed Colonial to be pretty consistent in the array of services provided to clients.
In the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, the company focused heavily on property and casualty insurance in addition to trust services. After World War II and the Korean War, Colonial worked closely with the Veterans Administration serving as guardian or conservator for disabled veterans.
Over the years, the partners saw others in their industry gradually sell out to large banks, Wynn said. “We were the oldest of our breed, and now we’re the last.”
As one of the few privately owned trust providers in the nation and the only one in the state, Wynn said Colonial’s focus continues to be “all about personalized customer service,” noting that most of the larger banks with trust personnel in-house typically provide services from a home office location far away from many of their customers.
Wynn and Barre have gone so far as to arrange for home maintenance and monthly bill paying for some of their clients.
“We do things a little more personally and are a little more flexible,” Barre said.
The two believe the approach has paid off. In 1989 when they purchased the company, Colonial Trust had $20 million in trust assets; today it has close to $800 million in trust assets, four offices and 18 employees.
Looking ahead, the partners are transitioning their sons Bert D. Barre and Camp R. Wynn into a deeper involvement in the company’s management. The younger Barre and Wynn joined the firm in 2001 and were made principals in 2007. They now handle more of the long-term goal planning, Barre said.
Camp Wynn said the younger men decided to join the family business because “we wanted to control our own destiny and build on everything that our fathers had done with the cornerstone of customer service,” adding both had an interest in finance and had worked at larger firms prior to joining Colonial.
The company plans to continue to grow its presence in South Carolina and announced the opening of a new Columbia location office at the anniversary celebration.
“We don’t want to grow just to grow,” said Bert Barre, “but I do see us continuing to expand throughout the state as a boutique firm.”
“One of the things that make us unique is that we’re two father-and-son teams, and we’re in it for the long haul,” Walter Barre said.
