With an eye toward expanding in the Kansas City area, Equity Bancshares Inc. in Andover, Kan., has struck a deal to acquire a Missouri bank charter.
The $149 million-asset Equity is buying the charter but not the assets of the $25.7 million-asset First National Bank of Sarcoxie, Mo., and plans to set up a branch in Lee’s Summit, Mo., a Kansas City suburb. The story was first reported Friday in the Wichita Business Journal and was confirmed Monday by Daniel U. Meese, the president of Equity’s Kansas City operations.
The price of the deal, which is expected to close Oct. 13, was not disclosed. Mr. Meese said in an interview that Equity made the deal so that it could do business in Missouri’s largest market.
“We have identified that we want to service the greater Kansas City metropolitan area with our commercial banking presence,” he said. “We are a Kansas-based bank unable to do business within Missouri” without a Missouri charter.
Missouri law requires out-of-state banks to buy a charter before branching into the state.
Mr. Meese said First National’s assets were retained by its owner, the $158 million-asset Buerge Bancshares Inc. in Joplin, Mo. Buerge also owns the $132 million-asset First State Bank of Joplin. Officials at Buerge declined to comment on the deal.
Mr. Meese joined Equity in January to head its expansion in the Kansas City area. The company opened a loan production office in Lee’s Summit in March; the branch would use that office until Equity found a permanent site for it in early 2007, Mr. Meese said.
He said Equity would continue to expand in the area “through de novo branches or through acquisitions. That’s next year’s news.”
Mr. Meese said the loan production office focuses on commercial lending, with an emphasis on commercial and industrial loans, though it does make some commercial real estate loans.
Before joining Equity, Mr. Meese was the state commercial banking manager of Missouri and Kansas for the $10.4 billion-asset Commercial Federal Corp. of Omaha. He left after Commercial Federal was acquired by Bank of the West, a division of the $1.6 trillion-asset BNP Paribas of France, in December.
