However, most of this money was made not by its own shareholders but by those of the Banks it scooped up after rules blocking interstate banking were relaxed in the 1980s.

In his haste to buy a Georgia bank after interstate banking first began in 1985, for example, he bought without fully inspecting the organization, and "cost ourselves a lot of money," he admits.

The Dallas metroplex is strong in telecoms, aerospace, distribution (four interstate highways converge there) and banking.