Superior Choice Credit Union, in Superior, Wis., has agreed to buy Dairyland State Bank in Bruce, Wis.
The $413 million-asset Superior Choice announced in a press release Tuesday that the purchase of the $78 million-asset Dairyland State is expected to close by the third or fourth quarter of 2018, pending regulatory approval. The credit union did not disclose how much it paid to acquire the bank.
Dairyland State was chartered in 1902 when it was known as Luberman’s State Bank, and the bank has 12 branches and 35,000 members throughout northwestern Wisconsin and northeastern Minnesota. The credit union will retain the bank's employees.
The acquisition will be an opportunity to expand Superior Choice’s footprint in northwestern Wisconsin, President and CEO Gary Elliott said in a press release.
“We are ecstatic to welcome Dairyland State Bank to our credit union,” Elliott said in the release. “As a locally owned community bank, we know that the values of Dairyland State Bank are already closely aligned with the values that we champion as a member-owned credit union.”
Dairyland State customers will become Superior Choice members with all the benefits of access and membership-ownership.
“Dairyland State Bank has taken immense pride in serving our local area,” Robert Hegeholz, president of Dairyland State, said in the release. “Superior Choice Credit Union is going to do an outstanding job in furthering the work we’ve done, while adding new products and services that Dairyland State Bank customers are going to really appreciate.”
This is the second credit union acquisition of a bank in 2018, said Michael Bell, a lawyer at Howard & Howard in Royal Oak, Mich., who represented Superior Choice in the deal.
“Deal flow and activity in this area is at an all-time high,” Bell said in an email. “Specifically I am seeing activity centered in the Southeast and the Midwest. Stand by for a couple more announcements in the next 30 to 60 days.”
