Bank of the Ozarks acquires Intervest Bancshares in $228.5 million deal

by The City Wire staff ([email protected]) 722 views 

Bank of the Ozarks and Intervest Bancshares Corp. plan to merge in a deal worth $228.5 million.

Intervest, the parent company of Intervest National Bank, operates seven offices — six in West Central Florida and one in New York City. At June 30, 2014, Intervest had approximately $1.6 billion of total assets, $1.2 billion of loans and $1.3 billion of deposits.

“We are pleased to announce the acquisition of Intervest, our twelfth acquisition in recent years and our largest to date,” said George Gleason, chairman and CEO of Bank of the Ozarks. “Intervest’s six offices and quarter century heritage in the Pinellas County, Florida market are a great complement to our four offices in nearby Manatee County. Intervest’s New York and Florida lending teams have a long track record of serving commercial real estate borrowers and product types not currently offered by Bank of the Ozarks. We expect the Intervest lending team to operate as a separate Stabilized Properties Group within Bank of the Ozarks, providing us yet another growth engine for earning assets.”

The all-stock transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2014 or the first quarter of 2015.

“I am proud of the organization our team has built over the last 21 years since my father and I started Intervest. We believe this transaction offers additional benefits to our customers and the communities we serve, value for our shareholders and opportunities for our employees. We are pleased to partner with Bank of the Ozarks, one of the best and most respected banks in the United States,” said Lowell Dansker, chairman and CEO of Intervest.