WASHINGTON The Federal Reserve Board on Wednesday approved the application of Juniper Financial Corp., an Internet-based credit card subsidiary of Columbus Bank and Trust in Columbus, Ga., to buy a bank and become a bank holding company.
The institution to be acquired is First Bank CBC of Maryville, Mo., which has assets of $106.3 million and is the 128th-largest bank in Missouri.
In a complicated series of transactions, the new holding company is ultimately to take over all the credit card operations of Columbus Bank, which is itself a subsidiary of Synovus Financial Corp.
Juniper said it intends to merge First Bank into Juniper Bank, a start-up planned but not yet opened in Wilmington, Del. It will then sell all of the assets of Juniper Bank to Citizens Bank and Trust Co. of Chillicothe, Mo., a subsidiary of Citizens Bancshares Co., which currently owns First Bank. This will leave Juniper as a bank holding company.
Finally, Juniper Bank will use its holding company status to buy all the assets and assume all the liabilities of Columbus Banks credit card division.
