Live Oak’s Quiet Shift

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Many years later, as the scent of jasmine and damp earth clung to the Wilmington air, the whispers began about a quiet unraveling, a shedding of skin by the Live Oak. It wasn’t a collapse, mind you, not the kind that sends tremors through Wall Street, but a deliberate loosening of grip, a subtle rearrangement of fortunes. James S. Iii Mahan, the man who guided this peculiar bank through decades of sun and shadow, authorized the release of twenty thousand shares – a sum that, to some, felt less like a transaction and more like a scattering of seeds in a vast, unpredictable field. The amount, roughly eight hundred and ten thousand dollars, was enough to purchase a small island, or perhaps simply to silence the ghosts of past investments. It happened, of course, as the calendar turned towards 2026, a year already burdened with the weight of unspoken promises.

The numbers themselves, when finally tallied by the diligent clerks of the SEC, were merely a footnote to the larger story. Twenty thousand shares, representing a fractional sliver – 0.31%, to be precise – of Mahan’s indirect holdings, moved from one account to another, like dust motes in a sunbeam. His remaining stake, a considerable 6,454,875 shares, remained, a silent testament to years of careful cultivation. The transaction, weighted at $40.49 per share, was not a frantic escape, but a pre-planned maneuver, orchestrated under the auspices of a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan – a legal labyrinth designed to shield the captain from accusations of insider trading, or perhaps simply to allow him a semblance of control over the inevitable tides.

Live Oak Bancshares, a holding company rooted in the red clay of North Carolina, had become something of an anomaly in the modern financial landscape. With a market capitalization of $1.88 billion and revenue hovering around $480.78 million, it wasn’t a behemoth like JPMorgan Chase or Bank of America. Rather, it was a specialist, a craftsman of small business loans, particularly those guaranteed by the Small Business Administration. In October, the SBA itself had bestowed upon Live Oak the title of most active 7(a) lender, a distinction earned through the disbursement of over $2.8 billion in funding to 2,280 small businesses. It was a peculiar kind of power, this ability to shape the fortunes of countless entrepreneurs, to breathe life into dreams built on borrowed capital.

The fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025 had brought a welcome surge in revenue – $150.93 million, a 61.75% increase from the previous year. Net income and earnings per share had also climbed, offering a glimmer of hope after a period of stagnation. Yet, the memory of better years lingered, a haunting reminder of past glories. The stock, despite a recent 18% gain as of February 21st, 2026, remained tethered to a past that refused to fully recede. Investing in Live Oak, then, was not merely a financial calculation, but an act of faith – a belief that this niche player, focused on the often-overlooked world of small business banking, could navigate the treacherous currents of the modern economy.

One could almost imagine the bank itself, a sturdy oak weathered by decades of storms, subtly shifting its roots, preparing for an uncertain future. The sale of those twenty thousand shares was not a sign of weakness, but a quiet adjustment, a shedding of excess weight in anticipation of a long journey. The scent of jasmine and damp earth, of course, would remain, a constant reminder of the bank’s roots, a promise that even in the face of change, some things would endure.

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2026-02-22 14:24