Taichung Commercial Bancorp in Taiwan is terminating its agreement to buy American Continental Bank in Southern California just over a year after announcing the $82 million deal.
The Taiwanese bank cited rapidly changing global political and economic conditions in a filing with Taiwan's stock exchange, according to
The acquisition would have expanded Taichung Commercial's footprint to markets in Los Angeles, Texas and Washington state, executives said when they announced the deal in late September 2022.
"We have complementary business models, strong residential mortgage loan production and a focus on the Chinese-American market," David Jia, president of the then-$26 billion-asset Taichung Commercial said in a statement at the time.
American Continental Bank, based in City of Industry, California, had about $354 million of assets at the end of June. It mainly operates in Asian American communities in several California counties: Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino. The bank also has loan production offices in Carrollton, Texas, and Fremont, California, along with a branch in Bellevue, Washington.
"[American Continental] will continue to explore strategic alternatives that it believes will provide strategic value to its shareholders," the bank said in the Oct. 13 release announcing the termination.
Neither bank immediately responded to requests for comment.
Earlier this year, a much larger cross-border merger deal fell through. TD Bank Group, based in Toronto,
