Spirit of Texas to Buy a Dallas Bank

ST Financial Group in College Station, Texas, plans to buy a small bank near Dallas.

The parent company of Spirit of Texas Bank has agreed to purchase Peoples Bank in Colleyville, which has $72 million in assets and two branches. The Houston Business Journal reported the deal Wednesday.

The two sides expect the deal to close in the second quarter; its value was undisclosed.

Robert Beall, the chairman of Peoples, would join the board of Spirit of Texas Bank and ST Financial once the deal is final.

ST Financial, which has assets of $463 million, recently completed a $22 million private offering. It plans to use the funds for acquisitions and other growth efforts in the Dallas region, said Dan Bass, the chairman and chief executive of its Spirit of Texas unit.

ST Financial has raised $76 million in the last four years through four separate offerings, he said.

The bulk of ST Financial's deposits are in the Houston region, and it has wanted to expand northward. It opened a loan production office near Dallas more than two years ago, recently hired two experienced bankers there and plans to open two additional branches in the Dallas-Fort Worth area besides those it would get from Peoples, Bass said.

"We are attempting to compete with the bigger banks" in these markets, Bass said.

Last year, Spirit of Texas bought the $77 million-asset Oasis Bank in Houston for an undisclosed sum. It has acquired six banks since 2008, Bass said.