Dive Brief:
- Conway, Arkansas-based Home BancShares will acquire Knoxville, Tennessee-based Mountain Commerce Bancorp in a $150.1 million all-stock deal that’s expected to close early in the first half of 2026, the companies said Monday.
- The transaction will give Home BancShares’ subsidiary, Centennial Bank, entry to Tennessee for the first time and create an entity with roughly $25 billion in assets, $19.2 billion in deposits and $17 billion in loans.
- Home BancShares disclosed in October that it had signed a letter of intent to buy a bank but did not name it. In an interview last month with American Banker, the bank’s CEO, John Allison, stayed mum on the name but called the target a “good bank [with] good people” in “good markets” but that it had “problems” with unrealized losses on its balance sheet.
Dive Insight:
Centennial Bank counts branches in Arkansas, Texas, Florida, southern Alabama and New York City. The Mountain Commerce deal would give it seven new locations: four in the Tri-Cities area that encompasses Johnson City, Bristol and Kingsport (with a fifth slated to open by March), two around Knoxville and one in a Nashville suburb.
“We look forward to being in these vibrant Tennessee markets,” Allison said in a statement. “We waited patiently to make our next acquisition to ensure we partnered up with a good quality bank in a strong market, and I am extremely pleased about what the future holds for HOMB and MCBI in the Volunteer State.”
Home BancShares is a fairly frequent buyer – though its last acquisition, of Lubbock, Texas-based Happy State Bank in 2022, saw asset quality woes at the selling bank…