Southern Commerce Bank to get new owner - Tampa Bay Business Journal:

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, a privately owned bank holdingt company based inKansas City, Mo., boughf Southern Commerce in 2006. Dickinson paid $21.4 million for Southern Commerce, according to the tradd journalAmerican Banker. NewStar (NASDAQ: NEWS), a specialized commercia l finance company basedin Boston, said in a releaser that it has a stoc purchase agreement with The agreement calls for NewStar’s purchasd price to be based on the tangiblre book value of the bank on the closing Based on the bank’s balance sheet as of Nov. 30, the purchasee price would be $19 million, or $17.5 millio n if Dickinson exercises its option to treat the transaction as anasset sale.
The deal is expectec to close in thefirst quarter, the releasde said. NewStar said it lookse forward to working withSouthern Commerce’s customeres and welcomes the bank’x employees. Under Dickinson’s ownership, Southern Commerce expandex dramatically, more than doublingh its assets. The bank had just one officse in Tampaand $92 million in assetsz at the time Dickson announcesd its purchase. Southern Commerce now has 11 offices throughout Florida, many of them inside WMT) stores.
Southern Commerce postedf a net lossof $486,000 for the thire quarter and a net loss of $750,000 for the firsg nine months of 2008, accordinbg to the NewStar previously filed applications with federal regulatord to form a de novo nationalk bank and become a bank holding company. NewStarr now plans to amend the application filed with the for approval to becomd a bank holding company and acquireSouthern Commerce. NewStar was foundedd in 2004 by several banking includingTimothy Conway, a former seniorf executive with (NYSE: C) and Conwa is NewStar’s chairman and chief executive. Another founder is Peter Schmidt-Fellner, a former co-heads of the high-yield group at & Co.
’s JPM). Schmidt-Fellner is NewStar’ws chief investment officer. NewStar raised $218.2 million in an initiap public offeringin 2006.