Peoples Bancorp of Marietta, Ohio, will buy Rockville, Maryland-based Capital Bancorp in a $728 million all-stock deal, the banks announced Wednesday.
The deal will give Peoples a stronger foothold on the Washington, D.C., metro area, where it first gained a presence from its 2021 acquisition of Premier Financial.
The Peoples-Capital deal is expected to close in the first half of 2027. The combined company will have roughly $14 billion in total assets, $10 billion in loans and $11 billion in deposits, along with more than 150 banking locations across eight states – Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, Maryland, Illinois, Florida, and North Carolina – as well as Washington, D.C.
“As Peoples approached $10 billion in assets, we were deliberate and patient in pursuing the right strategic opportunity,” Peoples CEO Tyler Wilcox said in a prepared statement. “We were looking for a transaction and a partner that strengthens our franchise well beyond scale alone, and Capital does exactly that.”
Wilcox pointed to Capital’s commercial bank, as well as its credit-improvement credit card, OpenSky; its Small Business Administration lender service provider, Windsor Advantage; and its home loan business as attractive parts of Capital’s business. The bank has about $3.9 billion in assets.
Under the merger agreement, Capital investors will receive 1.11 shares of Peoples common stock for each Capital share they own. The transaction’s value of $728.1 million, or $43.75 per share, stems from Peoples’ 20-day volume-weighted average closing price of $39.41 per share as of Tuesday.
The transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to Peoples' estimated 2027 earnings before one-time costs. The tangible book value earnback period is expected to be less than three years.
Three members of Capital’s board will join Peoples’ board after the deal closes.
Capital is the Ohio bank’s second acquisition of 2026. Peoples announced plans in April to buy Citizens Bank of Kentucky, but said it would sell that lender’s $300 million securities portfolio to remain under $10 billion in assets – a threshold that comes with higher regulatory scrutiny.
At the time, Peoples said it “remains ready to cross the $10 billion asset threshold following years of steady, continuous preparation” as it had “proactively invested in the systems, infrastructure, talent and governance needed to seamlessly transition to a $10 billion bank.”
The Peoples-Citizens of Kentucky deal received final regulatory approvals on Monday.
Wilcox, on an investor call Wednesday morning, said the bank is “hyper-focused on success,” and spoke to the bank’s appetite for further deals.
“We will maintain our efforts to see what's in the market and what's compelling, and remain opportunistic on that front,” he said.
