Centennial Bank’s parent company is acquiring all locations of Panama City-based Vision Bank.
Those locations include branches in Wewahitchka, Port St. Joe and St. Joe Beach.
Centennial Bank, a wholly owned subsidiary of Home BancShares Inc. (NASDAQ: HOMB), announced the agreement Wednesday. Vision Bank is a wholly owned subsidiary of the publicly traded Park National Corporation (Dow: PRK).
In a news release, Centennial Bank called the acquisition a strategic expansion for Home BancShares and Centennial Bank by acquiring Vision’s 17 locations along the Gulf Coast in Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. Centennial Bank plans to purchase only the banking locations, along with the majority of the performing loans and related other assets, the company reported.
Substantially, all of the deposits and related other liabilities also will be assumed by Centennial. Vision will retain the remaining performing loans, along with all nonperforming loans and other real estate owned at closing. Centennial said in the release it expects to obtain performing loans of about $378.6 million and about $535 million of deposits.
The acquisition is expected to be effective in early 2012.
Until the banks convert to a single operating system, which is anticipated to occur in April 2012, Centennial and Vision customers should continue to do business at their current Centennial or Vision branches. Customers of both banks, however, will be able to use Centennial and Vision ATMs free of charge in the near future.
