April Sees 19 Bank M&A Deals In US, Most Since Pre-Pandemic

Bank Mergers

U.S. bank mergers and acquisitions had a good month in April, with 19 announced deals — the most since the COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020, an S&P Global report stated. With the new level of activity, the total number of deal acquisitions reached 53 so far in 2021. That’s compared to 43 during the same period in 2020.

The total deal value for the 2021 deals hit $24.83 billion, up from $6.53 billion in the same period in 2020. April alone accounted for around $13.56 billion of the total deal value. “The median deal value-to-tangible common equity ratio for deals announced in 2021 increased to 149.9 percent, compared to 134.2 percent for all of 2020,” the report stated.

Out of the 20 biggest M&A deals in the U.S. announced since last year, eight of them came in April. Additionally announced in April were six megadeals, which refers to transactions with values of at least $500 million. That brings the total megadeals to eight for 2021. In comparison, there were only six such megadeals announced in 2020, and 12 in 2019.

Westbury, New York-based Community Bancorp announced on April 26 that it would buy Troy, Michigan-based Flagstar Bancorp for $2.56 billion. That was the seventh-largest deal announced since Jan. 1, 2020.

In another transaction, on April 19, Webster Financial Corp. and Sterling Bancorp announced an all-stock merger of equals for $5.14 billion, in the largest merger of equals and the fourth-largest U.S. bank deal announced since Jan. 1, 2020, the report stated.

NCR Digital Banking Senior Vice President and General Manager Doug Brown told Karen Webster that there would likely be a surge in dealmaking after the pandemic. He said this was especially likely as companies attempted to boost their digital offerings. In the summer of 2020, the exact opposite was true, with dealmaking down 70 percent from a year earlier, at just 40 transactions. But the pace picked up again with the deal for BBVA to sell its U.S. operations to PNC Bank, resulting in the creation of the fifth-largest regional player in the U.S.