This past Friday the ink officially dried on First Federal Bank’s deal to acquire BNC National Bank’s mortgage division. The deal was first announced mid-April. The value of the transaction has not been disclosed.
Offering consumer and commercial banking solutions, services, and loans through banking offices in Florida's Panhandle, North Central and East Florida, and coastal South Carolina, First Federal Bank is a community-based mutual institution headquartered in Lake City, Fla. The bank’s designation as a community-based mutual institution means the bank is owned by its customers rather than stockholders.
First Federal has not announced how it will triage BNC’s mortgage-related employees.
“This acquisition expands our commitment to customers and the residential mortgage sector. We look forward to serving the new mortgage customers with the same excellence they enjoyed from the BNC team,” First Federal’s president and CEO, John Medina, said when announcing the acquisition in April.
BNC is yet another institution hard-hit by the difficult housing market. With $48.5 million originated in March of this year, BNC’s mortgage business was down 84% from a peak of $305.39 million in March 2021, according to data from Modex.
"The Board of Directors made the decision to exit our nationwide residential mortgage origination business after extensive deliberations and concluding that this change in strategy is in the best long-term interests of the BNC, its shareholders and the communities we serve," the chairman of BNC National Bank, Michael Vekich, said in an April statement.
In recent years, First Federal has been increasing its footprint in the mortgage business through mortgage processing, wholesale lending, specialty commercial financing, warehouse lending, consumer direct lending, and a manufactured housing lending division. First Federal Bank has assets of more than $3.6 billion.
The acquisition allows First Federal to gain a nationwide consumer direct mortgage platform and expand its mortgage business across new markets in the Midwest and Arizona.
