Assistant Business Editor
Denver-based National Bank Holdings is sweeping into Dallas-Fort Worth by acquiring locally based Vista Bancshares for $369 million, giving the company a stronger foothold in Texas.
According to chief financial officer Nicole Van Denabeele, National Bank is paying a 152% premium for the book value of Vista, which is a privately held company. Meanwhile, Vista shareholders will get approximately $84.8 million of cash and about 7.4 million shares of NBHC common stock.
The combined banks will create a new entity with about $12.4 billion in assets and 100 locations in Texas and the Western U.S.
Vista relocated its headquarters to Dallas in 2018 after operating as a rural agricultural lender in Lubbock for most of its 100-year history.
It has 11 branch locations in the D-FW, Austin and Haskell areas. It also has a branch in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
‘Very serious’
The bank, however, is a relatively small player in the D-FW banking market, with a market share of about 0.16% on just over a billion dollars in deposits at the end of June 2024, according to FDIC data.
“We are very serious about leveraging their approach to private banking, and some of their approaches to recruiting, retaining and rewarding talent,” National Bank chairman and CEO Tim Laney said on a call with investors Tuesday morning.
National Bank operates a handful of banks throughout the Western U.S., including the NBH Bank, Community Banks of Colorado, Bank Midwest, Hillcrest Bank and Bank of Jackson Hole brands.
Hillcrest has a Dallas location at 3012 Maple Ave. just north of downtown.
With the Vista deal, Laney said the company now has a name it can use to unite the brands under one umbrella, with the exception of Bank of Jackson Hole.
“We will adopt Vista as our name,” Laney said. “I love its meaning and it should not be lost on anyone that the name plays well in both English and Spanish.”
Vista CEO John Steinmetz and the rest of the bank’s team will stay on with National, Laney said.
“My goal is to keep the VISTA band together and position it to simply play in bigger arenas,” Laney said.
National and international bank players have taken a growing interest in North Texas with Canada’s Scotiabank moving 1,000 jobs to Dallas, Goldman Sachs building a $500 million campus near downtown, and Ohio’s Huntington Bancshares spending $2 billion to acquire Dallas-based Veritex Holdings in July.