Heritage Bank of Florida Closed By Regulators

Heritage Bank of Florida, Lutz, Florida, was closed today by the Florida Office of Financial Regulation and the FDIC was appointed as receiver.  The failed bank was taken over by Centennial Bank, Conway, Arkansas, under a purchase and assumption agreement with the FDIC.

Heritage Bank of Florida, which was established on August 3, 1999, had three branches and almost a quarter of a billion dollars in deposits.  To protect depositors, Centennial Bank will assume all of the deposits of failed Heritage Bank of Florida..  All three branches of Heritage Bank will reopen on Monday as branches of Centennial Bank.  Over the weekend, depositors of Heritage Bank of Florida will have full access to their money through the use of checks, ATMs and debit cards.

Heritage Bank of Florida was a Florida chartered, commercial bank.  As an independent community bank, Heritage Bank primarily served the Florida counties of central Pasco and north and central Hillsborough Counties.  At September 30, 2012, Heritage Bank of Florida had total deposits of $222.3 million and total assets of $225.5 million.

Centennial Bank agreed to purchase $193.7 million of Heritage Bank of Florida’s assets, leaving the FDIC stuck with the remaining balance of $31.8 million.  As of June 30, 2012, the FDIC had a total of $21.8 billion in failed bank assets that have still not been disposed of.

Including Heritage Bank, Centennial Bank has now acquired a total of 7 failed banks since March of 2010.  Home BancShares, Inc. of Conway, Arkansas, operates as the holding company for Centennial Bank.  Founded in 1998, Home BancShares has grown rapidly through acquisitions and now has over $3.6 billion in assets.  Home BancShares has been profitable over the past three years and the company’s share value has more than doubled from the lows of early 2009.

Courtesy: yahoo finance

The estimated cost to the FDIC Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) for the failure of Heritage Bank is $65.5 million.  The total cost to the FDIC DIF for the 48 banking failures during 2012 now totals over $2.3 billion.  Heritage Bank of Florida becomes the nation’s 48th banking failure and the 8th in Florida.  Since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2008, a total of 462 banking institutions insured by the FDIC have failed.

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