Business
OceanFirst Financial Corp. and Partners Bancorp Announce Merger Agreement
Accelerates OceanFirst’s Strategic Expansion into Attractive Baltimore / Washington D.C. Region and Adds High-Growth, Commercial-Oriented Franchise with
About this update from Oceanfirst Financial Corp.
[{"type":"text","content":"Accelerates OceanFirst’s Strategic Expansion into Attractive Baltimore / Washington D.C. Region and Adds High-Growth, Commercial-Oriented Franchise with Stable Deposit Base\nRED BANK, N.J. and SALISBURY, Md., Nov. 04, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- OceanFirst Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:OCFC) (“OceanFirst”), parent company of OceanFirst Bank N.A. (“OceanFirst Bank”), and Partners Bancorp (NASDAQ: PTRS) (“Partners”), parent company of The Bank of Delmarva (and its division, Liberty Bell Bank), headquartered in Seaford, Delaware, and Virginia Partners Bank (and its division Maryland Partners Bank), headquartered in Fredericksburg, Virginia, jointly announced today that they have entered into a definitive agreement and plan of merger pursuant to which Partners will merge into OceanFirst, with OceanFirst surviving. Upon completion of the Partners merger, The Bank of Delmarva and Virginia Partners Bank will each successively merge into OceanFirst Bank, with OceanFirst Bank surviving each bank merger. Based on OceanFirst’s closing stock price on November 3, 2021 of $23.21, the transaction is valued at approximately $10.38 per Partners common share, or approximately $186 million in the aggregate. Based on September 30, 2021 results and the impact of purchase accounting, the combined company is expected to have, pro forma, approximately $13.5 billion in assets, $9.3 billion in loans and $11.2 billion in deposits. The proposed acquisition of Partners would expand OceanFirst’s footprint into Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and the Washington D.C. metro area. The transaction is expected to result in approximately 10% earnings per share accretion in 2023 (the first full year of fully phased-in synergies). Partners is the multi-bank holding company that owns The Bank of Delmarva and Virginia Partners Bank. At September 30, 2021, Partners had $1.64 billion in assets, $1.11 billion in loans, $1.44 billion in deposits, and $139.5 million in stockholders’ equity. Under the terms of the merger agreement, which has been approved by the Boards of Directors of both companies, in exchange for each share of Partners common stock, Partners stockholders may elect to receive $10.00 in cash or 0.4512 shares of OceanFirst common stock. The merger agreement provides that only up to 40% of Partners common stock will be exchanged for cash and the remaining shares exchange...