Stifel Financial Corp., a St. Louis investment banking company, has agreed to buy First Service Financial Co., a St. Louis commercial banking company, for $38 million in cash.
Ronald J. Kruszewski, Stifel's chairman and chief executive officer, said Tuesday that his firm needs to offer banking services to compete with firms like UBS AG and Merrill Lynch & Co. He said Stifel plans to offer home equity loans, small-business loans, and lines of credit to its current customers.
"We have 200,000 clients that we can market banking to," he said.
The sale, announced Monday, is expected to close in the first quarter.
John Dubinsky, a Stifel director, would be the chairman of the $129 million-asset First Service. He was the president and CEO of Mark Twain Bancshares and then the CEO of Mercantile Bank after the two merged in 1997. Mercantile eventually became part of U.S. Bancorp of Minneapolis.
