Wells Fargo to acquire Century Bank
Dallas Business Journal - by Chad Eric Watt Staff Writer
Wells Fargo & Co. announced today that it plans to acquire Century Bancshares Inc., a Dallas-based bank holding company with roots in Texarkana, in a stock-for-stock transaction.
Century Bancshares is the holding company for Century Bank NA, a $1.4 billion asset bank headquartered in New Boston, near Texarkana. Century Bank has 32 offices, including 19 in Dallas-Fort Worth. All of those D-FW offices opened since 2004, when Century began a push into Dallas-Fort Worth.
Century is owned by Truman Arnold, a Texarkana oilman and investor who bought the former First National Bank of New Boston and renamed it in 1998. Before entering banking, Arnold built a successful multistate chain of Road Runner convenience stores. Arnold in 1989 sold his Road Runner chain to French conglomerate Total Petroleum Inc.
Century Bank mirrored the retail convenience store strategy, selecting high-traffic locations around the Metroplex and staying open seven days a week.
That set of locations appealed to Wells Fargo, said bank regional manager John Gavin.
“What we found most attractive about them is they’ve got one of the best distributions of any bank in marketplace,” he said.
That strategy was paying off by another measure as well. Century Bank had gathered $473.9 million in deposits in Dallas-Fort Worth through June 30, 2007, the latest market-share data available. That was good enough to rank No. 30 in the region with 0.4% of the region’s available deposits — ahead of 155 other institutions in the region.
Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) is D-FW’s No. 3 bank by market share. The addition of Century Bank would give it 5.9% of D-FW deposits, up from 5.45%.
In Dallas-Fort Worth, Wells Fargo has had a stronger presence in Fort Worth than in Dallas. Century Bank’s expansion has focused on the Dallas side of the Metroplex. Wells Fargo first entered D-FW by acquiring a pair of strong locally run Fort Worth banks.
“We’ve been weaker in Dallas for a lot of reasons,” Gavin said. “That’s the reason they were especially attractive to us.”
Acquiring Century Bank would give San Francisco-based Wells Fargo its first banks in Arkansas, where Century has four bank offices.
The deal is subject to regulatory approval.
cwatt@bizjournals.com | 214-706-7123
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