F.N.B. Corp. wins regulatory green light for North Carolina bank acquisition

F.N.B. Corp. in Pittsburgh said it secured final regulatory approvals for its $117 million deal to acquire UB Bancorp, the parent of Union Bank in Greenville, North Carolina.

The Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency both approved the deal, which will boost F.N.B.'s asset base by $1 billion to $43 billion. The combined bank will have $35 billion of deposits and $29 billion of total loans, F.N.B. said in a press release after markets closed Wednesday.

UB Bancorp shareholders approved the deal in September. It is slated to close in December.

The timely approval process — without delays — is notable in a year when several large deals were postponed or nixed because of heightened regulatory scrutiny. Regulators ramped up M&A deal audits after guidance from President Biden in 2021 for federal bank supervisors to ask more questions and set up more hurdles to clear before signing off on proposed deals.

Vincent Delie, FNB, cropped
"There's a strategic focus on our part in continuing to build out the delivery channel in North Carolina," F.N.B. Chairman and CEO Vincent Delie said after announcing the UB Bancorp deal.

Several mergers were delayed this year and eight deals were called off.

Of the 10 largest terminated deals of the past 10 years, three were scrapped this year, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data: Blue Ridge Bankshares' merger with FVCBankcorp, VyStar Credit Union's acquisition of Heritage Southeast Bancorp and Patriot National Bancorp's buyout of American Challenger Development Corp. All three carried deal values of more than $100 million.

F.N.B., the parent of First National Bank of Pennsylvania, noted the expansion in North Carolina when it announced the UB Bancorp deal in June. The combined organization will operate about 100 branches and become the eighth-largest bank in the state by deposit market share, F.N.B. said.

Noting North Carolina's swelling population — its growth was the fourth-fastest among all states in 2021, according to Census Bureau data — F.N.B. has steadily bolstered its presence there ever since it entered the state in 2017 with the $1.4 billion acquisition of Yadkin Financial in Raleigh.

"There's a strategic focus on our part in continuing to build out the delivery channel in North Carolina," F.N.B. Chairman and CEO Vincent Delie said in an interview in June after announcing the UB Bancorp deal. "It makes sense for us to be focused there."

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