SunTrust Banks, Inc.

SunTrust Banks, Inc. was an Atlanta, Georgia–based bank holding company. Its predecessor, Trust Company of Georgia, dates to 1891; the holding company itself was incorporated in 1985 and traded on the NYSE under "STI." It was publicly held until December 6, 2019, when it completed a merger of equals with BB&T Corporation and became Truist Financial Corporation (NYSE: TFC), with Truist headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. SunTrust is now a subsidiary/brand of Truist. Pre-merger figures from public filings and press: roughly 24,000–26,000 employees, about $9B in annual revenue (2018), and approximately $199B in total assets (as of March 31, 2018).

Operations. SunTrust was a diversified financial services company, not a technology licensor. Its largest subsidiary, SunTrust Bank, provided consumer and commercial banking, mortgage lending, commercial real estate finance, and consumer lending through roughly 1,400 branches and 2,200 ATMs across 11 southeastern states and Washington, D.C. Its wholesale arm, SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, offered corporate and investment banking, capital markets, and treasury services; it also operated wealth management, private banking, and trust services.

Patent-litigation posture. Operating company defending against a patent assertion. The single tracked matter, Intellectual Ventures II LLC v. SunTrust Banks, Inc. et al. (N.D. Ga., filed 2013-07-24), lists SunTrust as a defendant with zero plaintiff-side filings. The venue was the Northern District of Georgia, not an Eastern District of Texas forum. The plaintiff, Intellectual Ventures II LLC, is an affiliate of Intellectual Ventures, a well-known patent-assertion entity and patent fund that acquires and licenses portfolios rather than operating businesses.

Context. SunTrust's only tracked appearance reflects the wave of NPE suits filed against large U.S. banks in the early 2010s over information-technology and financial-services processing patents. No tracked cases arise from SunTrust's own portfolio or from its merger with BB&T. The case count (0 as plaintiff, 1 as defendant) is consistent with a large operating bank being targeted, not with an entity monetizing patents.