Integrated Legacy Solutions (ILS), the leading provider of technology for image and data migrations and conversions to the financial services industry, recently released its quarterly overview of bank merger and acquisition data for the second quarter of 2018. Derived from data provided by the Federal Reserve System, the research quantifies all U.S. bank M&A activity occurring between April 2018 and June 2018 to monitor larger trends in the space, including total mergers and acquisitions, activity by state and region, the asset sizes of acquired and acquiring banks and transaction pricing, among other insights.
There were a total of 65 bank M&A deals closed in Q2 2018, measuring up similarly to Q1 and Q2 2017, which resulted in 62 and 65 closed deals respectively. While closed M&A deal actively remained relatively flat through Q2 2018, the number of M&A deals recently announced by U.S. banks in Q2 appears to signal a more positive uptick in activity for the second half of 2018. For example, the recent announcement of Fifth Third Bank’s $4.7 billion acquisition of MB Financial appears to have signaled the entry of some larger bank acquisitions that have previously been under the radar and are expected to gain momentum moving into Q3 2018.
“Now that we’ve arrived at the halfway point in 2018, the industry is not only benchmarking M&A activity in comparison to years past, but also looking at recent trends in the space to predict what’s to come in the second half of the year,” said Kris Bishop, founder and president of ILS. “While we only saw 52 deals announced in Q3 2017, momentum seems to be building for much stronger Q3 2018 as we saw 80 deals announced in Q2 alone and anticipate the average size and book price of these upcoming M&A transactions to continue upward as a result.”
Other notable insights from the Q2 2018 research include:
- California had the most M&A transactions closed of any state, with 8 total transactions. Florida, Missouri and New Jersey ranked second, with 5 transactions each.
- The Chicago and Kansas City FED regions tied for the most M&A deals closed across all regions of the U.S. Both regions reported closing 13 M&A transactions during Q2 2018.
- On the other end of the scale, the Boston FED region had the least amount of M&A activity in Q2, with only 3 closed transactions.
- From the 80 total M&A deals announced in Q2 2018, the Chicago FED region represented the greatest number of deals announced with a total of 18.
- The average asset size of acquired banks for the second quarter of 2018 was $517.4 million, while the average asset size of acquiring banks was $3.8 billion.
- The largest acquisition in Q2 2018 was Cincinnati, Ohio-based First Financial Bank’s ($8.8 billion in assets) acquisition of Greensburg, Ind.-based Mainsource Bank ($4.6 billion in assets).
“Although M&A numbers year-to-date are trailing behind the pace the industry experienced this time last year, we still have a full six months left in 2018 to increase momentum,” said Bishop. “With Q3 deals starting to be announced, it’s projected to positively impact 2018’s M&A numbers overall, we look forward to what the rest of the year has in store for today’s changing financial industry.”
For additional insight on today’s M&A activity, download ILS’ full Q2 2018 report at: https://form.jotform.com/81914213637153.
About Integrated Legacy Systems
Headquartered in Birmingham, Ala., Integrated Legacy Solutions (ILS) provides industry leading technology for legacy image and data migrations and conversions to the financial industry. ILS’s leadership team has performed data conversion for thousands of financial institutions over their nearly 20 years in the business. Through its flagship product, OmniView™ Browser, efficient business model and focused expertise, ILS has designed innovative ways to “migrate” legacy data much faster and less expensive than other costly and time consuming methods of data conversion. ILS’s success is focused on 3 key areas; customer service, the business (or conversion) process, and the latest technology to convert or migrate legacy systems quickly with minimal disruption to the client’s production environment. For more information, visit: www.integratedlegacy.com.