Bremer Financial, Minnesota's fourth-largest bank by deposits, is for sale, according to people familiar with the matter.
Financial advisers have been retained to find a buyer for the Saint Paul-based lender, said the people, who asked to not be identified because the matter isn't public. While it's not clear how much it would fetch in a sale, the bank had about $1.35 billion of equity capital as of June 30, according to
No final decision has been made and the trust could opt against pursuing a deal, the people said.
Bremer is owned by the Otto Bremer Trust and Bremer employees, according to its website.
"The Bremer Financial Corporation board of directors and the trustees of the Otto Bremer Trust are currently working together to redefine the relationship between the two organizations. As a policy, Bremer does not comment on rumors or speculation," a representative for Bremer Financial said in a statement.
A representative for the Otto Bremer Trust said the trustees had no comment.
Bremer comes to market amid a pickup in small and midsize bank mergers, with lenders seeking scale to better compete with massive rivals such as JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America.
Bremer is unusual in that it is owned by a charitable trust, which was set up in the 1940s by Otto Bremer, a German immigrant who helped rescue a number of Midwestern U.S. banks during the Great Depression, according to its website.
A major farm lender, the bank had about $16.3 billion of assets as of June 30, filings show. It was the fourth-largest deposit holder in Minnesota as of June 30, behind U.S. Bancorp, Wells Fargo and Ameriprise Financial's bank, according to data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
The potential sale comes after a
