Massachusetts Credit Union Completes Rare Bank Acquisition

GFA Federal Credit Union in Gardener, Mass., has completed its acquisition of Monadnock Community Bank.

GFA agreed in March to buy Monadnock for $6.4 million in a deal that required the Peterborough, N.H., bank to repay $1.8 million in funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program. The acquisition closed on Dec. 28.

Credit unions last year began to make moves toward buying small community banks and thrifts, as those institutions were weakened by problems tied to the financial crisis and concerns about the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency replacing the Office of Thrift Supervision as the federal regulator for thrifts. Early last year, United Federal Credit Union in St. Joseph, Mich., bought Griffith Savings Bank of Griffith, Ind.

Monadnock, a $73 million-asset institution with a single branch, was a former state-chartered credit union that converted to a federal thrift in 1996. Monadnock had been looking to sell because of problems caused by the economic crisis and uneasiness about the future.

GFA has $353 million of assets and nine branches in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.