Two of the nation's oldest African-American-owned banking companies have agreed to join forces.
The $261 million-asset M&F Bancorp Inc. of Durham, N.C., said Friday that it would acquire the $94 million-asset Mutual Community Savings Bank Inc. of Durham in a one-to-one stock swap.
In June the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. slapped Mutual Community with a cease-and-desist order citing inadequate management and low capital levels.
It lost $846,000 last year after losing $383,000 in 2005.
M&F said buying Mutual Community would make it the country's fourth-largest black-owned banking company, with 13 branches and roughly $355 million of assets.
"This in-market merger represents a strategic step forward that we believe will increase our financial strength and generate efficiencies of scale," Kim D. Saunders, M&F's president and chief executive, said in a press release.
This would be M&F's first deal since acquiring Fraternal Bank & Trust in 1921.
It is expected to close in the first quarter.
