Dive Brief:
- The Federal Reserve on Tuesday said it has given its approval for Nashville, Tennessee-based Pinnacle Bank to merge with Columbus, Georgia-based Synovus Bank.
- Since shareholders of each company approved the combination Nov. 6, the merger is expected to be completed Jan. 1, the banks said in a Tuesday news release.
- The merger will create a $116 billion-asset bank adopting the Pinnacle name, with the holding company based in Atlanta and the bank headquartered in Nashville.
Dive Insight:
The all-stock, $8.6 billion regional bank deal was announced in July to tepid investor response. Since then, Pinnacle CEO Terry Turner – who becomes board chair of the combined bank – and Synovus CEO Kevin Blair – who will become president and CEO – have repeatedly stressed that this combination will be different from the last Southeastern merger of equals.
The merger of $61 billion-asset Synovus and $54.8 billion-asset Pinnacle is not “Truist 2.0,” Turner said at an investor conference in September. “This is a starkly different transaction.”
Being decisive and making key decisions early is part of that distinction, executives have emphasized. In August, the two banks laid out the combined company’s management team…