First Bancorp

First Bancorp

First Bancorp traces its lineage to 1935 and the founding of First Bank in Troy, North Carolina, with the Moore family at its operational center across three generations. Richard Moore, the current CEO, previously served as North Carolina State Treasurer, giving the bank a rare intersection of local political connectivity and deposit-gathering authority. The firm operates as a publicly traded bank holding company but retains the posture of a family-influenced institution, with the Moore family’s multi-decade leadership shaping its conservative credit culture. The bank deploys capital primarily through commercial real estate lending, residential mortgage origination, and small-to-medium business credit across North Carolina and South Carolina. Its loan book, totaling roughly $8 billion, skews toward owner-occupied commercial properties and construction-and-development financing — asset classes that demand boots-on-the-ground underwriting, which First Bancorp supports through a branch density exceeding 110 locations. Its mortgage division originates roughly $1 billion annually, while a dedicated SBA lending desk chases the government-guaranteed segment that community banks have historically dominated. As of mid-2024, First Bancorp reported total assets near $12.1 billion and a market capitalization above $1.4 billion. The bank operates under a single-state charter but has expanded across the border into South Carolina through acquisition — most notably the 2021 purchase of Select Bancorp, which added over $1.8 billion in assets. The Moore family’s influence persists through board seats and executive roles; Richard Moore has been CEO since 2012, and his father, J.C. Moore, was the founding chairman. The bank pays a consistent dividend, signaling the income-oriented governance common among Southeastern family-influenced lenders. First Bancorp’s structural differentiator is the longevity of its family-operator model inside a publicly regulated balance sheet. Most banks its size have professionalized management and diluted founder influence; First Bancorp has instead retained multigenerational family direction while satisfying public-market governance requirements. That hybrid structure allows the bank to maintain a localized credit approval process — loan officers who know borrowers personally — while still accessing equity and debt capital markets that a pure family office could not.