Virginia Financial Group Inc.

102 S. Main St.

Year founded: 1900

Industry: Banking

Post 200 Category: Top Financial Companies

Revenue: n/a

Net Income/Loss: $15.20 Million

Earnings per share: $2.11

Dividend: $0.78

Stockholder equity: $127.09 Million

Auditor: Yount, Hyde & Barbour PC

Stock: VFGI

Assets: $1.45 Billion

Market capitalization: $234.61 Million

52-week high: 38.29 1/3/2005

52-week low: 28.82 5/24/2004

Chairman: Taylor E. Gore

President and CEO: O.R. Barham Jr.

Employees: 524

Local employees: 322

Description: Virginia Financial Group is a holding company that owns banks in the Shenandoah Valley and central Virginia. They include Planters Bank & Trust, Second Bank & Trust, Virginia Heartland Bank, and Virginia Commonwealth Trust.

Developments: Virginia Financial has maintained its strategy of buying community banks in small Virginia cities and rural areas and then allowing them to operate with much the same staff and practices that were in place previously. The holding company brings efficiencies in back-office and other areas while leaving established customer relationships in place. The company did not make any acquisitions in the past year; rather, it sold two branches that were part of an eight-branch network it bought in 2003. Those two branches, in Tazewell County, did not complement the company's other operations, bank executives said. The two branches were sold to the Bank of Tazewell County, an affiliate of National Bankshares Inc. of Blacksburg, Va., In September, Virginia Financial announced that it had hired Litz H. Van Dyke as executive vice president and chief operating officer. Van Dyke had previously served in a similar position at FNB Corp. in Christianburg, Va. Virginia Financial also elected Taylor E. Gore, a board member, as the board's new chairman, and it elected H. Wayne Parrish as vice chairman.