Pending regulatory and shareholder approvals, Lafayette-based MidSouth Bank will have 16 new branches up and running throughout north Louisiana and Texarkana by the end of the year, as the company announced today its plans to acquire Peoples State Bank of Many. 

According to a release from MidSouth, Peoples State Chairman and CEO Leonard Q. “Pete” Abington will join MidSouth’s Board of Directors after the deal is finalized, while Peoples State President John J. “JJ” Blake III will serve as senior vice president and regional president of MidSouth’s Timber region.

Abington says in the release that the deal is a "pure merger," also noting that the “burdensome regulatory environment” has created a need for consolidation of banks in order to remain competitive in the industry. He says the merger gives Peoples State Bank the needed resources to expand their services in the Pineville, Alexandria, Shreveport-Bossier and Texarkana markets. MidSouth, meanwhile, will be “filling gaps” in its Louisiana-Texas footprint.

	MidSouth Chief Credit Officer John Nichols, Peoples State President JJ Blake and MidSouth Chief Banking Officer Troy Cloutier

“We’ve known each other for more than a decade and have always viewed Peoples as an attractive partner for those reasons and so many others, chief among them are the quality of the employees, the diversity of our loan portfolios and our philosophical similarities about community involvement, customer service and the basic principles of banking,” MidSouth President and CEO Rusty Cloutier says in the release. “When this deal is done, the combined bank, with total assets of $1.9 billion, will have 58 banking centers up and running.”

	MidSouth Bank President Rusty Cloutier

The deal is valued at roughly $39 million, a figure that includes $16 million in cash, 756,534 shares of MidSouth common stock and $10 million liquidation value of 4 percent noncumulative convertible preferred stock. The purchase also allows for potential additional cash of up to $2 million based on the performance of certain identified loans over a three-year period following the acquisition. Peoples State’s preferred stock issued under the U.S. Treasury’s Community Development Capital Initiative will also be redeemed in full as part of the agreement.

“From my perspective – and the way I’m confident our shareholders, customers and employees will view this – we have taken the very best of South Louisiana banking and combined it with the very best of North Louisiana banking,” PSB’s Blake says in a prepared statement. “As Peoples approaches the centennial anniversary of its founding, we think that’s a recipe for success for the next 100 years.”

Read the full press release here.