Dive Brief:

• Suffolk, Virginia-based TowneBank has agreed to acquire Raleigh, North Carolina-based Dogwood State Bank in a roughly $476.2 million deal set to close in early 2026, the companies said Tuesday.
• The move would add 17 branches to TowneBank’s more than 55-location footprint – specifically, growing the lender’s presence in markets along the I-85 corridor: Raleigh, Greensboro and Charlotte in North Carolina and Greenville, in South Carolina.
• The deal comes, too, as TowneBank is expecting to close its acquisition of Hampton, Virginia-based Old Point Financial on Sept. 1. TowneBank also closed its deal for Village Bank and Trust Financial Corp. on April 1 – making Dogwood its third acquisition of the year.

Dive Insight:

Counting what it stands to acquire in the Old Point transaction, TowneBank is set to hold $22 billion in assets, $19 billion in deposits and $16 billion in loans once the Dogwood deal closes. Dogwood, as it stands, counted $2.4 billion in assets as of June 30.

Dogwood CEO Steve Jones will join TowneBank as president of North and South Carolina banking operations, according to a Tuesday press release. Robin Perkins, CEO of Spinners Capital and a director on Dogwood’s board, will join TowneBank’s board once the transaction closes.

“It has been my pleasure to know Steve for a number of years and we have always admired the great job he and his team have done building Dogwood State Bank,” G. Robert Aston Jr., TowneBank’s executive chair, said in a statement Tuesday. “We are excited to have Steve and his talented teammates join hands and hearts with our Towne family to take our Main Street Bank forward in the fast-growing North Carolina and South Carolina markets.”

Jones, meanwhile, called the deal “an exciting new chapter” for Dogwood, adding that the bank has found a partner with “vision and values [that] align closely with our own.”

Under the deal, Dogwood shareholders will receive 0.7 shares of TowneBank common stock for each Dogwood share they own. That equates to roughly $25.04 per share based on TowneBank’s 15-day average closing stock price of $35.77 from Monday.

“This partnership will bring new opportunities for our customers, employees, and shareholders, while building to the legacy we’ve created at Dogwood,” Jones said. “I am incredibly proud of what our team has achieved and confident this transition will position us for continued success.”

TowneBank expects the Dogwood acquisition to be roughly 8% accretive to earnings per share by the end of 2027, it said.

TowneBank would hardly be the first lender, amid the expected regulatory relaxation of the second Trump administration, to engage in two separate acquisitions at once (in Towne’s case, Old Point and Dogwood).

Cincinnati-based First Financial Bancorp last week announced it would buy Burr Ridge, Illinois-based BankFinancial Corp. in a $142 million deal. First Financial, a month and a half earlier, announced it would acquire Cleveland-area lender Westfield Bancorp for $325 million. Both deals are set to close in the fourth quarter.