First State Bancorp in Albuquerque is buying the $374 million-asset Access Anytime Bancorp, also of Albuquerque, for about $30 million in stock. In addition to building itself in New Mexico, the $2 billion-asset First State would enter Arizona by acquiring Access Anytime, whose lone branch there is in the Phoenix suburb of Sun City.
All of AccessBank's nine other branches are in New Mexico, including Las Cruces and other cities where First State has no branches. First State's 30 branches are in New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah.
H. Patrick Dee, First State's chief operating officer, said in a phone interview Thursday: "Las Cruces is one of the faster-growing markets in state, with an influx of population from Texas and California. This also gets us into the Phoenix/Scottsdale market, and we're very excited about the growth characteristics there."
First State's last completed acquisition was of the $365 million-asset First Community Industrial Bank in Denver in October 2002; the seller was Washington Mutual Inc.
