LandMark Bank was one of nine Southwest Florida community banks launched in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Its history in the crowded market was characterized by intense competition and a reliance on loans to a small group of property investors and developers.
Among those who received multiple loans from LandMark were investor Marvin Kaplan and real estate broker W. Howard Rooks.
Companies managed by Kaplan received 20 loans totaling more than $13.5 million over nine years and defaulted on two of them.
Companies controlled by Rooks, who filed for bankruptcy protection in Virginia in 1991, received six loans totaling $4.6 million. He also defaulted on two loans.
Three other borrowers obtained large loans despite past bankruptcies.
Gary Moyer filed for bankruptcy in 1994 and emerged a decade later as a developer in Manatee County.
Moyer helped put together the San Marco shopping center in Lakewood Ranch. He then transferred 7,400 square feet of unsold space in San Marco to one of his companies at well above market value and got an $830,000 loan from LandMark. The company defaulted two years later.
Another customer who received a loan from LandMark was Chris Moody, the former partner of convicted Ponzi schemer Arthur G. Nadel. Two weeks after a hedge fund controlled by those two men collapsed, LandMark gave Moody a $2 million loan.
LandMark got none of that money back.
The receiver in charge of the SEC's civil fraud case against the Ponzi schemer seized the collateral from that loan to repay Nadel's victims.
An attorney for the bank's former board members would not comment.