OceanFirst Financial and Flushing Financial has secured the approval of shareholders for their planned merger.
The deal, agreed in December, is valued at $579m.
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Regulatory permissions have also been obtained from the New York State Department of Financial Services and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
The parties said the transaction is still waiting on approval from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and other standard closing conditions.
Upon deal completion, Flushing Bank will be combined into OceanFirst Bank, with OceanFirst Bank continuing as the surviving bank.
The combined group is projected to have about $23bn in assets, $17bn in loans and $18bn in deposits, operating 71 retail branches.
The companies said OceanFirst’s New York footprint would expand across Suffolk, Nassau, Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan counties, alongside its existing presence in New Jersey and Long Island.
OceanFirst also reported an investment agreement with affiliates of funds managed by Warburg Pincus, under which the investors are fully committed to invest $225m in newly issued equity securities, conditional on the merger closing.
Christopher Maher, OceanFirst’s chairman and chief executive, is set to lead the merged holding company as CEO once the transaction closes.
Flushing’s president and chief executive, John Buran, is expected to take the role of non-executive chair of the board at OceanFirst after completion.
The post-merger board is planned to have 17 members – 10 from OceanFirst’s current board, six from Flushing’s current board and one representing Warburg Pincus.
