Crescent Capital VI LLC, a Bellevue, Wash., private-equity firm, has offered to acquire the outstanding shares of the $490 million-asset Cowlitz Bancorp. in Longview it does not already own for $15 each.
Crescent, which already owns about 9.8% of Cowlitz's stock, announced the offer Friday in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The offer values Cowlitz at about $74 million.
The price is a 21% premium over Cowlitz's closing price of $12.38 a share Friday. The shares shot up 8.6% on Monday, to close at $13.44.
In its filing, Crescent said it would appoint Steven Wasson as the chief executive officer of Cowlitz and bring in other experienced bankers to help run the company. Mr. Wasson, a Crescent employee, is a former executive vice president and manager of business banking for U.S. Bank.
Last week Cowlitz said its second-quarter earnings fell 40% from a year earlier, to $673,000, or 13 cents a share.
