Seacoast Banking Corporation of Florida (Seacoast), the holding company for Seacoast National Bank, has acquired rival Florida-based First Green Bancorp (First Green), the holding company for First Green Bank, in a deal worth around $115m.
Image: Seacoast acquires First Green. Photo: courtesy of rawpixel/Unsplash.
The transaction, which resulted in the merger of the entities, was signed in July 2018 to expand the footprint of Seacoast in the Orlando market and strengthen its franchise in Fort Lauderdale.
It is also said to complement its previous acquisitions in Orlando, which includes The BANKshares in October 2014, Floridian Financial Group in March 2016 and BMO Harris’ Orlando banking operations in June 2016.
As per the agreement, each share of First Green was exchanged for 0.7324 of Seacoast shares. Headquartered in Orlando, First Green had around $799m in assets, $664m in deposits and $676m in loans as of 30 September 2018.
Before entering into the merger, First Green operated seven branches located across the Orlando, Daytona and Fort Lauderdale.
First Green Bank was established in 2009 by a team of local bankers after being given the last bank charter in the state of Florida. The community bank provides personal banking, business banking and attorney banking among other services.
Seacoast, on the other hand, has nearly $5.9bn in assets and $4.7bn in deposits as of 31 March 2018. It offers a range of financial services such as commercial and retail banking, wealth management, and mortgage services to customers through advanced banking solutions to go along with its 49 traditional branches of Seacoast Bank, and five commercial banking centers.
Seacoast Chairman and CEO Dennis Hudson, III said: “We are delighted to welcome First Green’s customers and employees into the Seacoast family.
“We look forward to introducing them to our broad range of convenient and mobile-accessible products and services as well as Seacoast’s personalized brand of customer service.”
Seacoast had engaged Raymond James Financial as its financial advisor and Alston & Bird as its legal counsel to support the transaction.
Last November, banking firm acquired Palm Beach Community Bank (PBCB) in a $71.6m worth deal. The acquisition of PBCB added around $320m in assets, $265m in deposits and $270m in loans to the Florida-based community banking firm.