By Cole Epley / World-Herald staff writer
Access Bank is set to acquire La Vista-based Bank of Nebraska in a deal that will double its branch footprint in the metro area and give a big boost to its deposit base.
By the time the bank celebrates its 10th anniversary in December, it will most likely be among the 10 largest banks in the metropolitan area in terms of local deposits. Access is the state’s youngest bank.
Neither bank disclosed the terms of the tie-up.
“I know a lot of banks were interested in this deal, and so it’s a good opportunity for us in the market,” said Pat Corrigan, president and chief executive of Access Bank. “We knew there are not too many opportunities like this in the Omaha market, where there are a lot of good, healthy banks, and Bank of Nebraska is one of them.”
There are eight total branches between the two banks. Corrigan said only two of them, situated just across the street from each other at 140th Street and West Center Road, are considered redundant. Even though one will fall by the wayside, no employees will lose their jobs because business is brisk, he said.
“We’ve been growing double-digits since we opened, and we can absorb any extra personnel as they come along,” Corrigan said.
Access will rebrand all former Bank of Nebraska locations by the end of the year.
The merger also catapults the combined institution into the list of the top 10 metro-area banks as ranked by local deposits as of December 2016.
Bank of Nebraska, which was founded in 1974, had about $141 million in deposits as of Dec. 31, 2016. Access Bank reported about $258 million in deposits. With regulatory blessing expected in the next 90 days, the combination would result in a bank with nearly $400 million in local deposits.
Judging by figures at the end of 2016, Access would leap-frog both TS Bank of Treynor, Iowa, and Omaha-based Core Bank to take the No. 10 spot when the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. accounts for deposit market share at mid-year.
The FDIC every year issues reports on banks’ deposits by geographic area as of June 30. In its latest report on deposits of all FDIC-insured banks in the Omaha-Council Bluffs area, Access Bank had increased deposits enough to ascend from No. 15 in the metro area as of mid-2015 to No. 12 in mid-2016. It will rise in the rankings again when the FDIC officially takes stock of metro-area deposit leaders later this year.
Denny Hogan, chairman of Bank of Nebraska, said the deal brings together two institutions that are a “good match.” Having been in business for more than 40 years, Bank of Nebraska has a mortgage business with decades’ worth of clients under its belt, for example.
Corrigan said that particular line of business made the acquisition an attractive deal, and so did the older bank’s relatively stronger base of consumer deposits. Being a newer bank, Access has relied more heavily on increasing its deposit base by courting business customers.
The deal materialized when Bank of Nebraska co-founder and Sarpy County developer Mike Hogan died in August 2016 at age 87. The late Hogan was a majority owner of Bank of Nebraska, along with family members.
cole.epley@owh.com, 402-444-1534
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