SunTrust to Buy National Commerce for $7 Billion
A brief bidding war for Memphis-based
National Commerce Financial
(NCF)
ended Sunday when
SunTrust
(STI) - Get SunTrust Banks, Inc. Report
agreed to buy the regional bank for about $7 billion.
SunTrust, which beat out
Fifth Third
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(FITB) - Get Fifth Third Bancorp Report
in the bidding contest, will exchange cash and stock worth $33.46 for each National Commerce share. Word of a potential deal began to circulate Friday morning; National Commerce closed Thursday at $27.51 a share.
The acquisition will create the country's seventh-largest bank, with 1,723 branches and about $148 billion in assets. National Commerce has about $23 billion in assets.
National Commerce is the latest bank to be swept up in a wave of regional buyouts. Last week,
Royal Bank of Scotland
agreed to pay $10.5 billion for
Charter One
.
Under terms of the deal, National Commerce shareholders will receive 0.3713 SunTrust shares plus either cash or additional SunTrust shares worth $8.63. The transaction should come out to about $1.8 billion in cash and 77.5 million SunTrust shares.
