Daryl Byrd is ready for his next chapter in Louisiana banking.

The former Iberiabank CEO, whose bank was bought by First Horizon in 2019, will be the next chair and chief executive of Morgan City-based M C Bancshares, the holding company for M C Bank & Trust Co., under a deal announced Wednesday.

And he’s bringing several Iberiabank alums with him. 

• Mark Tipton – now the Georgia regional president at First Horizon, according to his LinkedIn profile – will serve as M C Bank’s president.
• Michael Brown will become M C Bank’s operations chief; he has been a private investor since departing First Horizon in 2021, according to his LinkedIn profile.
• Scott Price, CFO of Birmingham, Alabama-based bank holding company NewtekOne, according to his LinkedIn profile, will become CFO of M C Bank.

Byrd is leading an investor group, DMMS Purchser, that has agreed to acquire M C Bancshares for an undisclosed sum in a deal that’s expected to close in the first half of 2026, according to a press release Wednesday. 

“I badly failed at retirement,” Byrd told NOLA.com. “I thought I could go back to playing tennis and I wouldn’t be bored, but that didn’t work. I missed the engagement, relationships and excitement of being CEO and I feel like I have a lot of energy left to spend.”

The bank, which counts roughly $480 million in assets, will retain its name after the deal closes, according to Wednesday’s announcement.

M C’s footprint encompasses 10 locations throughout southern Louisiana, though the bank is planning three new branches, including its first outpost in Uptown New Orleans.

DMMS plans to retain the bank’s 100-person workforce, according to the press release.

“We believe there’s an absence in the market for a relationship-oriented commercial bank,” Byrd told NOLA.com. “We’re proud of the client-oriented focus we had at Iberia and believe we can create that magic again.”

Under the deal, DMMS will make a “substantial investment” – up to $250 million – into M C Bank alongside legacy holding company investors to bolster the bank’s capital and turn it into a “meaningful” regional player.

M C Bank’s current CEO, Chris LeBato, will serve on the holding company’s executive committee as vice chair and chief of staff, after the deal closes. And LeBato, too, is an IberiaBank alum, having served at the bank for a decade before leading M C, beginning in 2021, according to his LinkedIn profile.

The deal “creates a powerful alignment of talent, experience and vision that will propel the bank forward in ways only true collaboration can," LeBato said in a statement.

Other former Iberiabank executives set to join the DMMS team include former technology chief Jack Deano, former executive vice president Cleland Powell and former general counsel Rob Worley.

Byrd said he, Brown and Tipton began thinking about starting another banking franchise after their non-compete clauses with First Horizon wrapped up.

Byrd oversaw more than 20 bank buyouts from the time he joined Iberiabank in 1999 to when he left in 2020.

“When I came to Iberia, we had around $1 billion in assets, 300 people and a market cap of $80 million," Byrd said. “At the end, we had 3,500 people in markets all over the South.”

M C Bancshares' existing shareholders will own about 25% of the new franchise once the deal closes, Byrd said, and new investors will own the rest.