Prosperity Continues Texas Expansion With Deal for The Bank Arlington

Four months after its planned sale to Texas investment group fell through, The Bank Arlington near Dallas has found another buyer.

Prosperity Bancshares Inc. in Houston announced late Thursday that it is buying the $37 million-asset Bank Arlington in an all-stock deal. Prosperity said it would issue 138,600 of its shares for all of Bank Arlington's outstanding shares, which, based on Prosperity's closing price Thursday Friday, works out to a price of roughly $5.8 million.

"Our team has wanted to expand our presence in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex for some time and adding a location in Arlington is an excellent fit for us," said David Zalman, Prosperity's chairman and chief executive in a news release.

After several years on the sidelines, the $9.8 billion-asset Prosperity has now announced three acquisitions in Texas in the last four months. In September it said it was acquiring Texas Bankers Inc. in Austin and last month it struck a deal to buy East Texas Financial Services Inc. in Tyler.

Once the deal for Bank Arlington is completed sometime next quarter, Prosperity would have 32 offices in the Dallas/Fort Worth market.

For the six-year-old Bank Arlington, the deal would end its search for a buyer following the collapse of its agreement to sell itself to investment group known as TAB Capital Inc. That deal failed after TAB was unable to raise the necessary capital to complete the acquisition.

Prosperity is widely considered to be one the nation's strongest banks. On Friday, it reported net income of $36.4 million for the quarter, up 11% from the same period in 2010, due primarily to strong loan growth. For the full year it earned a record $141.7 million, up 10.3% from 2010.

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