In the latest example of a New Jersey-based bank buying into the Long Island and New York City markets, OceanFirst Financial is merging Flushing Financial into its business in an all-stock deal valued at $579 million.
Red Bank, N.J.-based OceanFirst said it reached a deal to merge Uniondale-based Flushing Financial into its operations and be the sole remaining entity with $23 billion assets, $17 billion in loans, $18 billion in deposits and 71 branches.
OceanFirst Financial Corp, which operates as OceanFirst Bank, was founded in 1902 and is currently a $14.3 billion regional bank.
Flushing Financial, parent of Flushing Bank, was founded in 1929 and operates in Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and on Long Island.
The two companies first announced their intention to merge last December in a deal now expected to close in the second quarter of this year, subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals.
This meeting of two minds and markets follows Englewood Cliffs, N.J.-based ConnectOne’s acquisition of Melville-based First National Bank of Long Island, as Jersey-based institutions seek to grow in New York, and specifically Long Island.
OceanFirst Chairman and CEO Christopher Maher will serve as the CEO of the combined company, and Flushing Financial President and CEO John Buran will become non-executive chairman of the Board.
The combined company’s Board will consist of 17 directors, including 10 from OceanFirst’s existing board, six from Flushing Financia’s Board and one from Warburg Pincus.
The bank will give OceanFirst a boost in what it called the “highly attractive, deposit-rich markets of Suffolk, Nassau, Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan.”
OceanFirst also said as part of the deal, affiliates of funds managed by Warburg Pincus plan to invest $225 million in non-voting stock at the closing.
Source: LI Press
