Sonabank Founders Want One More Deal Before Selling: Report

The husband and wife who lead Southern National Bancorp of Virginia (SONA) want to make one more acquisition before they try to sell their bank and retire.

Georgia Derrico, chairman and chief executive, and Rod Porter, president and chief operating officer, said that their company probably needs at least $1 billion of assets to attract the most bidders, the Washington Business Journal reported. Sonabank, the company's bank unit, now has about $724 million of assets.

But if Derrico and Porter receive a good offer before the McLean, Va.-based bank reaches $1 billion of assets, they could sell sooner. Derrico and Porter together own about 5% of Southern National's stock, according to its proxy statement filed Friday.

"If we get an offer we can't refuse, we'll take it," Derrico says.

Sonabank has made three acquisitions, the most recent having been a failed bank — the $164 million-asset HarVest Bank of Maryland. In May, Sonabank sold about $19 million worth of nonperforming loans that it had acquired from HarVest. Sonabank's HarVest deal did not include a loss-sharing agreement with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.