Community bank company Seacoast Banking has a storied history in Stuart in Martin County on Florida's Treasure Coast. Launched with a charter in Okeechobee in 1930, founder Dennis S. Hudson Sr. moved it to Stuart three years later where it became a hallmark of the local community. It sponsored a telephone time-and-temperature line that locals could call. Kids could get a moon-rocket coin bank for saving their pennies.
A more recent storyline: acquisition and expansion.
Seacoast in October completed buying Villages Bancorporation, the parent of Central Florida's Citizens First Bank. A few months earlier, Seacoast paid $111.2 million to acquire Heartland Bancshares, parent of Heartland National Bank, the deposit market share leader in Highlands County with $665.9 million in deposits.
In acquiring the Citizens parent, Seacoast scooped up more than half the deposit share in The Villages, the Central Florida community that's grown from scratch to 150,000 residents in 77,000 homes spread over 60,000 acres. The Villages was developed by the Morse family, which also controlled Citizens. Citizens had 19 branches, $3.5 billion in deposits and $1.3 billion in net loans. Seacoast at the time had $15.9 billion in assets, $12.5 billion in deposits and 103 branches across Florida.
Seacoast paid $829 million for the banking company. "Together, we will create even greater value for our customers and shareholders, while building on a solid foundation to support continued growth and success across the communities we serve," Seacoast chairman and CEO Chuck Shaffer says.
Seacoast is redeveloping its Stuart home with a new office building to serve as the bank's headquarters. — By Mike Vogel