CEO Paul Holewinski doesn't think of Dickinson Financial Corp. as a serial acquirer.
Doing deals is "not necessarily a line of business for us like you might see at a larger bank that's using stock as currency, but acquisitions are a part of our overall growth strategy," Holewinski said Thursday in an interview. "We get a fair number of looks every year."
Holewinski has no plans to move the family-owned, Kansas City, Missouri-based Dickinson to the merger-and-acquisition sideline or even slow de novo branch plans now that its subsidiary, the $2.7 billion-asset Academy Bank, has struck a deal for Mountain View Bank of Commerce, a one-branch, $188 million-asset institution in Westminster, Colorado.
"We'll be opportunistic in looking for deals that fit our strategic growth plans," Holewinski said.
Academy is also building branches. It plans to add one in Denver and three in Arizona over the next 12 months.
"We have a growth mindset," Holewinski said. "Growth ebbs and flows, depending on the opportunities that present themselves. We're disciplined about choosing [de novo] locations and how we analyze acquisitions."
The Mountain View deal, expected to close in the fourth quarter, will raise Academy's presence on the northern end of the Denver market, and move it into Boulder, where Mountain View maintains a loan production office. "It's very complementary to Academy Bank's existing footprint," Holewinski said.
For Mountain View, the transaction provides access to a bigger bank's balance sheet and more resources. "We are excited about the innovative technology, branch network, and product set that combining with Academy Bank will bring to our clients," President and CEO Andy Ellison said Wednesday in a press release.
Academy operates 72 branches in Missouri, Kansas, Colorado and Arizona, including more than 50 in-store locations in Walmarts. Acquiring Mountain View would give Academy 28 branches and $725 million of assets in Colorado. The merged company would have 13 Denver-area branches and approximately $435 million in deposits, according to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. statistics.
In its hometown Kansas City market, Academy operates 25 branches with $1.2 billion of deposits, according to the FDIC.
Mountain View, which opened in February 2008, enters the merger with a relatively clean balance sheet. Just 0.22% of Mountain View's $157 million loan portfolio was classified as noncurrent on March 31, according to the FDIC. Mountain View reported net income of $263,000 for the first quarter after earning $1.92 million in 2023.
"We're excited about this platform as an opportunity to grow," Holewinski said. "We like how they look at credit and run their bank. I think our cultures will mesh very well."
Dickinson operates as a multi-charter holding company. It encountered credit quality issues around the time of the 2008 financial crisis,
Dickinson has thrived since the reorganization, reporting an annual profit every year since 2016, including 2023 net income of $25.2 million. The company moved into a new, larger headquarters in Kansas City in October.
Dickinson has completed two deals since the 2015 reorganization, acquiring the $104 million-asset Merit Bank in Overland Park, Kansas, in 2017, and the $255 million-asset KCB Bank in Kearney, Missouri, in 2019. Both banks were merged into Academy.
Both Dickinson and Mountain View are privately held. They did not disclose any of the financial terms of the deal.
