- What to know: Huntington Bancshares in Columbus Ohio believes it could close its $1.9 billion deal for Veritex Financial in Dallas early in the fourth quarter, extending a recent trend of earlier deal completions.
- Deeper dive: Huntington has acquired most of the land it needs for a planned de novo expansion in North Carolina and South Carolina, and it expects branch construction in the region to accelerate in 2026.
- Bottom line: Growth in Texas and the Carolinas is boosting the $207.7 billion-asset regional bank's lending as well as its net interest margin.
Huntington Bancshares believes it can close its planned acquisition of Dallas-based Veritex Holdings early in the fourth quarter, and it views the $1.9 billion deal as a launching pad for future expansion in the Lone Star State.
"We feel confident we could have an early fourth-quarter close," said Brant Standridge, Huntington's president of consumer and regional banking, during remarks Monday at the Barclays Global Financial Services Conference in New York
Those expectations align Huntington with other acquirers, such as the $71 billion-asset Old National Bancorp in Evansville, Indiana, and the $37.3 billion-asset, Richmond, Virginia-based Atlantic Union Bankshares, that have closed bank deals rapidly in recent months.
While some experts have suggested speedier approval timelines will lead to more merger-and-acquisition activity, Standridge indicated that Huntington's growth in Texas and the Carolinas, where the Columbus, Ohio-based bank is also executing on an expansion strategy, probably won't involve new deals. "We remain very committed that our primary strategy is organic growth," Standridge said.
Announced July 14, the Veritex transaction "gives us a significant share in the Dallas market, a real foothold in the Houston market [as well as] a list of really fantastic customers that we can now bring the entire franchise to," Standridge said. "We view it really as a springboard for what would be a very strong organic opportunity in Texas."
Huntington unveiled its move into North Carolina and South Carolina, where it plans to build a total of 55 branches, in September 2024. The $207.7 billion-asset regional bank has opened three branches so far, with "a couple more" set to open by year-end, Standridge said, adding that the tempo will quicken in 2026.
"We've actually secured the vast majority of the sites already," Standridge said. "We'll have a very large and significant opening year next year." Huntington has also bolstered its home-lending and wealth operations in the Carolinas.
Huntington's results in Texas and the Carolinas have helped boost its lending, with third-quarter loans trending higher than anticipated, as is the bank's net interest margin, according to Chief Financial Officer Zach Wasserman, who also spoke at the Barclay conference.
Huntington's upbeat forecast "generates a touch of upward pressure on our 2025 earnings-per-share estimate, and a few pennies-per-share on 2026," Piper Sandler analyst Scott Siefers wrote Monday in a research note.
Steven Alexopoulos, who covers Huntington for TD Cowen, termed the bank "one of the industry's key organic growth success stories" in a Monday research note.
"Not only is the company seeing strong growth momentum in its expansion markets in the Carolinas and Texas, but the core Midwest market performance has also been solid," Alexopoulos wrote.
Founded in 1866 and known primarily as a Midwestern franchise for most of its 159-year history, Huntington began expanding outside of its home region in 2021 with the acquisition of Detroit-based TCF Financial. In addition to giving Huntington a presence in the Minneapolis-St. Paul marketplace, the deal stretched the bank's footprint to include Colorado.
Initially, Huntington announced plans to expand commercial lending in the Carolinas in December 2023, and in Texas in March 2024. Those plans mushroomed eventually into the branch-building campaign in North Carolina and South Carolina, and the deal for Veritex in Texas.
