Add VyStar Credit Union to the growing list of credit unions buying banks.
The Jacksonville, Fla., credit union said on Monday that it would buy Citizens State Bank in Perry, Fla. The move is part of a larger expansion plan for the $8.2 billion-asset VyStar.
Vyster did not disclose the price it will pay. The deal is expected to close by mid-2019.
Earlier this month, Florida and Georgia regulators approved the credit union’s request to expand its field of membership into four counties in southeast Georgia. That decision comes after VyStar increased its field of membership by 27 counties in Florida to include all 49 counties in the northern and central parts of the state last year.
The town of Perry, located about 125 miles west of Jacksonville, is in Taylor County, which was included in the Florida expansion.
This would be the first bank purchase for VyStar, said Michael Bell, a lawyer at Howard & Howard who represented the credit union. VyStar is also likely to continue “growing nonorganically,” Bell said.
VyStar said it expects to keep the $280 million-asset Citizens State’s four branches and retain all of its employees. VyStar will have 69 branches and roughly $8.7 billion in assets when the transaction is completed.
“The CSB acquisition and our recent field of membership expansions are significant milestones in our vision to bring credit union services to more people,” Brian Wolfburg, VyStar’s president and CEO, said in a press release. “Our recent expansions are taking VyStar into new markets, making it necessary to consider mergers/acquisitions to more efficiently serve these new markets.”
An increasing number of
“This is the first announcement of a credit union buying a bank in 2019 and more will be coming soon,” said Bell, who has worked on a number of deals in which a bank was sold to a credit union.
