Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Home BancShares to buy Florida bank
Home BancShares, owner of Centennial Bank branches in four states, announced plans Monday to purchase Stonegate Bank of Pompano Beach, Fla.
Stonegate has $3.1 billion in assets, $2.5 billion in loans, $2.7 billion in deposits and 25 branches in Florida. Home BancShares of Conway agreed to pay $778 million for Stonegate as well as about $700 million in Home BancShares stock.
With the purchase, Home BancShares will have $13.5 billion in assets.
The announcement was made after the market closed Monday.
Shares of Home BancShares rose 18 cents to close Monday at $26.83 in trading on the Nasdaq exchange. Stonegate Bank closed at $46.10, up 38 cents, also in trading on the Nasdaq exchange.
The deal is expected to close in the fall.
John Allison, chairman of Home BancShares, told a
standing room-only crowd at the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce’s conference room that Stonegate is the “crown jewel” and the “cream of the crop” among Florida banks and “is a game changer for Home BancShares in the Florida market.”
Stonegate is the 22nd acquisition by Home BancShares and the largest.
“Stonegate is a top-tier franchise with high profitability and has the perfect [locations] to enhance Home’s presence in Florida,” Allison said in a prepared statement.
The purchase will be profitable for Home BancShares
the day the deal closes, Allison said.
Most banks Stonegate has considered merging with make less money than Stonegate, said Dave Seleski, Stonegate’s chief executive officer, who was at the news conference in Little Rock.
“That’s not the case with Home BancShares,” said Seleski, who started the bank from scratch 12 years ago. “Their performance is unbelievable. I consider it one of the top banks in the country, in Arkansas and in the Southeast United States. We think we can add a lot to [Home BancShares’] Florida [business].”
Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who attended the news conference, said he hopes Arkansas
can capitalize on Stonegate’s connections in Cuba.
“This will be good for our agricultural community,” Hutchinson said. “We’re delighted to have that Arkansas banking connection now through Stonegate.”
Hutchinson has promoted Arkansas agriculture, particularly rice and chicken, to the Cuban government.
The Cuban connection could be a major asset to the bank, Allison said.
“I think there are a a lot of good possibilities coming down the road for this opportunity [in Cuba],” Allison said. “[Seleski] likes it. There is an understanding process for our people to learn what he has learned [about Cuba]. The more he talks about it,
the more I get excited about it.”
Allison, Seleski and other representatives from Home BancShares will travel to Cuba in the next few weeks, Allison said.
Seleski said there is a waitand-see attitude toward what the Trump administration will decide to do about Cuba.
The agriculture opportunities for Arkansas, particularly rice and chicken, seem to be a natural fit, Seleski said.
“We probably didn’t have the balance sheet to take advantage of that, but combined [with Stonegate and Home BancShares] and if everything politically moves forward, there might be a lot of upside,” Seleski said.