CenterState Bank Corp. has agreed to buy Charter Financial Corp. in Georgia in a cash and stock deal valued at $360.1 million.
The deal gives CenterState (NASDAQ: CSFL), based in Winter Haven, its first entry in commercial banking in the Georgia and Alabama markets, including Atlanta, where Charter Financial’s CharterBank has nearly a dozen branch offices.
CenterState CEO John Corbett said as recently as February that he viewed Atlanta as a logical expansion market for the bank.
