Liberty Bank sells to Centennial Bank, owned by Home Bancshares.

News

Home BancShares Inc. of Conway announced the signing of a definitive agreement worth $280 million for Liberty Bancshares Inc. of Jonesboro to merge into HOMB. Under the terms of agreement, shareholders of Liberty will receive $250 million of HOMB common stock plus $30 million in cash.

The price represents a multiple of 1.06 times actual shareholder equity and about 1.6 times book value when intangibles like goodwill are included.

The acquisition is expected to close late in the third quarter or early in the fourth quarter of 2013 and is subject to Home and Liberty shareholder approval, regulatory approval, and other conditions set forth in the merger agreement.

The announcement was made Tuesday afternoon in downtown Little Rock. Jonesboro Radio Group General Manager Trey Stafford was LIVE in Little Rock along with KAIT’s GM Tracey Rogers.

Listen below as Tracey and Trey weigh in on the breaking news story…

Liberty has a staff of 632 and operates a branch network of 42 full-service locations in Arkansas. The company recorded a profit of $6.1 million during the first quarter of 2013.

Centennial operates a full-service branch network with 51 locations in Florida, 46 locations in Arkansas and seven in Alabama with a companywide staff of 895. The bank reported net income of $18.1 million during the first quarter.

Read more on this story on the KAIT website

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