Home BancShares To Buy Florida Business BancGroup

(RTTNews) - Home BancShares, Inc. (HOMB), parent company of Centennial Bank, said Wednesday that it has agreed to buy Florida Business BancGroup, Inc., parent company of Bay Cities Bank headquartered in Tampa, Florida.

Under the deal, Florida Business BancGroup will merge into Home, and Bay Cities will merge into Centennial, and shareholders of Florida Business BancGroup will receive proceeds from the deal of about $101.6 million as a combination of both Home common stock and cash, split 80% and 20%, respectively.

Florida Business BancGroup currently operates six branch locations and a loan production office in the Tampa Bay area and in Sarasota, Florida. As of March 31, 2015, Florida Business BancGroup had about $540.5 million in total assets, $391.7 million in loans, and $461.4 million in deposits. Upon completion of the acquisition, the company will have approximately $8.5 billion in total assets.

The acquisition is expected to close late in the third quarter or early in the fourth quarter of 2015.