Q&A: US Bancorp's Rick Hartnack

MINNEAPOLIS (TheStreet) -- U.S. Bancorp (USB Quote) has been opportunistic during the financial crisis, making a number of acquisitions of failed banking institutions since November 2008, including names like Downey Savings & Loan and PFF Bank & Trust, as well as the branch and deposit base in Nevada of failed Colonial Bank from BB&T (BBT Quote). Most recently, it snapped up the nine banking subsidiaries of FBOP Corp. of Oak Park, Ill. earlier this month.

Last week, U.S. Bank's Vice Chairman of consumer banking Rick Hartnack took time to discuss company's acquisition strategy with TheStreet.

Can you talk about how these acquisitions fit into the overall U.S. Bank picture?

One of the things that really started to jump off the page for us maybe two and a half years ago was in attractive markets, it was very obvious where we had strong branch share or distribution our performance tended to be significantly better and where we were underrepresented in distribution our performance tended to be much worse. So in a blinding flash of the obvious we said what we really need to do is in the best markets where the opportunities are the greatest, we need to really focus on getting our distribution share up to one of the leading positions. So that answers one question that we're often asked: 'Why not Florida? Why not Atlanta? Why not New York? Why not Washington D.C.?' This part of the strategy is highly focused on our existing 24-state footprint.

Within that footprint there are several markets that jumped off the page. In California, we had less than leading market share. Another place where we were underrepresented -- we were big, but not big enough -- was in Colorado. Another place where we've been underrepresented was Chicago and there are others. So that's kind of the story -- where do you want to have more branch density? Then look at the deals that will help you and then bid to try to win. Certainly we bid on more deals than we have won. There have been disappointments along the way, but some very nice deals have come together.