Commerce Bancshares in Kansas City, Missouri, ended its mergers-and-acquisitions drought Monday by announcing plans to acquire a private bank and trust company that operates in Florida, South Carolina and Arizona.
Commerce, which
It marks the largest deal in Commerce's history, and the first with
The transaction is expected to close on Jan. 1, 2026, pending regulatory and shareholder approval. Under the agreement's terms, FineMark Chairman and CEO Joseph Catti will join the combined organization as chairman of Commerce's trust unit, Commerce Trust. He will continue as CEO of FineMark, which will operate as a division of Commerce.
The deal offers a chance for Commerce to expand its private banking and wealth management presence in Florida, and to enter "attractive, high-growth markets" in Arizona and South Carolina, John Kemper told analysts Monday during a conference call to discuss the transaction. It also offers "a strong mix of noninterest revenue" through FineMark's asset management unit, an attractive loan portfolio and "pristine credit history," Kemper added.
The two companies have been getting to know one another for several years, Kemper said.
"I would say we've been proactively building this relationship with the FineMark team for almost five years at this point," Kemper said. "So I think we've really come to know each other very well. … This has been a long time coming, and we're really happy to be where we are right now."
The leaders that saw their salaries skyrocket the most in 2024 had also gotten pay cuts in the prior year.
The Commerce-FineMark deal comes amid
Following the proposed acquisition, which has already been approved by the boards of directors at both companies, Commerce will have about $36 billion of assets, and its total wealth assets under administration will be about $84 billion. Its assets under management will be $52 billion.
Founded in 2007, FineMark has built itself as a high-touch, full-service private bank for high-net-worth individuals. It offers private banking, wealth management, trust and estate planning and lending. Fee income makes up 47% of its total revenues, and it operates a niche segment that provides wealth management services to 300 professional athletes, who comprise 15% of its client base.
As of March 31, FineMark had deposits of about $3.1 billion and loans of about $2.6 billion.
The deal "checks several strategic boxes" for Commerce, according to Nathan Race, an analyst at Piper Sandler, which is advising FineMark on the deal. The list includes FineMark's "complementary wealth management business," its "easily digestible size," its "clean credit quality profile" and a footprint for future growth, Race wrote in a note.
Moving into Southwest Florida as well as Charleston, South Carolina, and Scottsdale, Arizona, where FineMark operates, "could potentially accelerate [Commerce's] organic [balance sheet] growth prospects relative to its generally low-single-digit historical pace," Race added.
Commerce's most recent acquisition was the
Commerce reported record quarterly net interest income of $269 million for the first quarter of 2025. Fee income of $159 million, including $57 million of trust fees generated by its wealth management business, made up 37.1% of the company's total revenue.
