BB&T receives approval to acquire Susquehanna Bancshares

BB&T Corp. announced Tuesday it has received regulatory approval to buy Pennsylvania-based lender Susquehanna Bancshares.

Winston-Salem-based BB&T Corp. announced that federal and state regulators have OK’d the deal, which is expected to close Aug. 1. The roughly $2.5 billion cash-and-stock purchase was originally announced in November.

BB&T said the deal will increase its footprint in the mid-Atlantic region, where Susquehanna operates more than 240 branch offices in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and West Virginia through subsidiary Susquehanna Bank.

BB&T said it will acquire $18.7 billion in assets and $13.8 billion in deposits through the deal.

“Susquehanna is a strategically compelling deal expanding our franchise into a contiguous, attractive region that presents tremendous opportunities,” BB&T Chairman and CEO Kelly King said in a statement Tuesday.

Susquehanna Bancshares, a bank holding company, has 3,400 employees. The company’s other operations include wealth management, risk management consulting, insurance brokerage, commercial finance and vehicle leasing.

Tuesday’s announcement comes a month after BB&T Corp. completed its purchase of The Bank of Kentucky. BB&T agreed in September to buy that lender for about $363 million in stock and cash. The deal marked BB&T’s first acquisition of another lender since it acquired Florida’s BankAtlantic in 2012.

BB&T is the third-largest lender by deposits in the Charlotte metropolitan area, behind No. 1 Bank of America and No. 2 Wells Fargo.

This story was originally published July 7, 2015 at 5:21 PM with the headline "BB&T receives approval to acquire Susquehanna Bancshares."