Sterling Bancorp Buys Astoria Financial

Sterling Bancorp has announced that it will acquire Astoria Financial Corporation in a stock-for-stock transaction valued at approximately $2.2 billion. The union of these financial institutions will create a new Sterling Bancorp with $29 billion in assets, making it the sixth largest regional bank in the New York City area in terms of deposits.

 

Sterling Bancorp was not Astoria Financial’s initial choice for a suitor. Last year, the financial institution sought a merger with New York Community Bancorp, but the deal was rejected by regulators.

 

"By joining forces, Astoria and Sterling will create one of the leading banking enterprises in the NYC metropolitan area and will be well positioned to deliver performance and value for our customers, shareholders, employees and communities," said Jack L. Kopnisky, president and CEO of Sterling. "We are excited about the opportunity to bring together two companies with extremely complementary strengths, providing a platform to extend Sterling's business banking solutions across a substantially larger market area, while introducing Astoria's retail products to a wider financial center network."