United Community strikes sixth M&A deal in as many years

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United Community Banks is back to doing deals.

The acquisitive Southeast company said Tuesday it would bolster its Miami presence with the planned acquisition of ANB Holdings and its bank. The $80 million, all-stock deal is slated to close in the second quarter of 2025.

The $439 million-asset American National Bank is based in Oakland Park, Florida, a northern suburb in the Miami metropolitan area. It primarily serves Miami Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties — markets that posted stronger-than-national-average population growth through this decade.

The target has loans of $322 million and deposits of $374 million. It has just one branch. United Community has about 200 branches across Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.

"This transaction strengthens our presence in the greater Miami market," Lynn Harton, Greenville, South Carolina-based United Community's chairman and CEO, said in a release announcing the deal.

"We made an investment in this market with our acquisition of First National Bank of South Miami in 2023 and currently have an experienced and expanding team in place," Harton said. The ANB acquisition would "add a customer service-focused hub in an attractive area."

The $27.4 billion-asset United Community has acquired five banks since 2018, but the ANB deal is its first since July last year, when it bought the $1 billion-asset First Miami Bancorp and its First National Bank of South Miami.

Following the spate of dealmaking, the company focused for a stretch on selling assets it no longer wanted, some of which it picked up in previous acquisitions. In September, United Community announced the sale of a $318 million portfolio of manufactured-housing loans acquired in 2022, part of its $518 million purchase of the $3 billion-asset Reliant Bancorp in Brentwood, Tennessee. 

"We've been very acquisitive over the last several years. We intend to continue to be acquisitive as we go forward," Harton said in a September interview. "We've taken this kind of lull in the market to ... tune up our strategy, clarify what we're good at and what we're not, and clarify where we want to invest going forward. ... That's really what we've been doing the past 12 months."

United Community said the ANB deal was expected to be accretive to its earnings per share by 4 cents in 2026, the first full year of combined operations. The deal was approved by the boards of both companies.

United Community's return to M&A comes alongside an overall rebound. Low interest rates, economic uncertainty and increased regulatory scrutiny slowed activity in 2023. But, after taming inflation, the Federal Reserve has twice cut interest rates this fall.

More than 110 banks have announced plans to sell this year. Those deals had an aggregate value of more than $13 billion. Volume this year surpassed the 98 transactions inked in all of 2023, and the value more than tripled the $4.15 billion total for last year, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Jacob Thompson, managing director of investment banking at Samco Capital Markets, said the incoming Trump administration's deregulation promises could also spur more interest in M&A next year. Dozens of deals were delayed — and several were nixed — over the past couple years following President Biden's call for increased regulatory oversight of mergers, Thompson said.

"That won't change overnight, but I think there are now more positives than negatives for bank M&A," he said. "Going forward, I'm guardedly optimistic that we'll see another increase in 2025."

He anticipates more activity in Texas and the Southeast, notably including deals such as United Community's transaction in Florida. He said Florida's warm climate and low taxes — it has no state income tax — continue to fuel population growth.

"I think the Sunbelt, definitely including Florida, will continue to be very attractive," Thompson said. "The growth potential is much better than what you see in a lot of other areas."