Enterprise Financial Services (EFSC), the holding company of Enterprise Bank & Trust (EB&T) has agreed to acquire Cerritos, California-based First Choice Bancorp (FCBP) in a deal worth around $397.7m, or $33.40 per FCBP share.
FCBP will merge with and into EFSC under the arrangement. FCBP is the parent of First Choice Bank, which will merge with and into EB&T.
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The merged entity will be a $12.7bn business.
The deal will see each FCBP common stockholder get 0.6603 shares of EFSC common stock for each share held and cash in lieu of fractional shares.
Existing Enterprise shareholders will own around 80% of the merged business, while FCBP shareholders will own around 20%.
The deal already secured the nod pf the two companies’ boards of directors. It now awaits the approvals of shareholders and regulators.
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By GlobalDataFCBP founder and chairman of the board Peter Hui will secure a seat on the Enterprise board upon deal completion in the third quarter of 2021.
EFSC expects the deal to be around 8% accretive to its 2022 earnings per share.
FCBP president, CEO and director Robert Franko said: “We believe that pairing our team’s in-depth knowledge of our local markets and communities with the more robust financial capabilities of Enterprise will enhance our lending capacity, products, and services.
“Enterprise’s stated mission of ‘Guiding people to a lifetime of financial success’ will continue the motto of First Choice of ‘First in speed, service and solutions.’ With the synergies of the combined organisations, we believe this transaction will deliver significant value to both of our shareholders, associates and the communities we serve.”
At the end of March this year, FCBP had nearly $2.5bn in total assets, $2bn in loans, and $1.9bn in deposits.
First Choice has eight full-service branches along with two loan production offices in Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego Counties.
Clayton, Missouri-based EFSC has around $10.2bn in assets. EB&T has 39 branch offices and offers business and personal banking as well as wealth management services.
In a separate development recently in the US community banking space, Connecticut’s Webster Financial agreed to acquire New York’s Sterling Bancorp in all-stock “merger of equals” deal.
