PNC to buy FirstBank for $4.1B, expanding to Arizona, Colorado

Key Points

• PNC Financial plans to acquire Colorado-based FirstBank for $4.1 billion, expanding its presence in Colorado and Arizona.
• FirstBank, branded as 1stBank, operates 120 retail branches and has approximately $26 billion in assets.
• The acquisition will position PNC as the largest bank in the Denver market and increase its total assets to around $575 billion.
• PNC's recent acquisition strategy is aimed at transforming it into a major player in the retail banking sector, following its earlier acquisition of BBVA's U.S. operations.

NEW YORK (AP) — PNC Financial said Monday that it plans to buy Colorado-based FirstBank for $4.1 billion, giving PNC a substantial presence in the Colorado banking market as well as Arizona.

Based in Lakewood, Colorado., FirstBank, which is also branded as 1stBank, is a midsized bank that operates 120 retail branches with $26.7 billion in assets. The bank is privately held, but the banks disclosed that the stockholders of FirstBank who collectively own 45.7% of the shares have already voted in favor of the merger.

“Its deep retail deposit base, unrivaled branch network in Colorado, growing presence in Arizona, and trusted community relationships make it an ideal partner for PNC,” said Bill Demchak, chairman and chief executive officer of PNC, in a statement.

PNC has been on an acquisition streak in the last few years that has made the Pennsylvania bank one of the biggest players in retail banking in the country, as PNC executives like to say “a coast-to-coast banking franchise." PNC bought the U.S. operations of Spanish bank BBVA shortly after the pandemic for $11.6 billion. The bank has also been opening new branches in multiple markets, but particularly in the Southwest.

The FirstBank acquisition will make PNC the largest bank in the Denver market, and will give PNC more than 70 branches in Arizona. PNC will also grow to roughly $575 billion in assets.

The FirstBank purchase will put PNC closer in size to Capital One and U.S. Bank, who are PNC’s closest rivals. U.S. Bank, in particular, operates heavily in the Colorado and Arizona market.

Alex Overstrom, head of retail for the bank, said PNC may consider additional acquisitions to build out its franchise.

“We are not slowing down our organic growth but may consider opportunities as they arise,” Overstrom said, in an interview.

PNC is typically referred to as a super regional bank, a group of large national banks that are significant in size, often hundreds of billions in assets and hundreds of branches, but are dwarfed in size by the banking giants Wells Fargo, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, who have size and scale that the super regionals cannot replicate.

The super regionals have been growing considerably in recent years in order to better compete with the Wall Street titans in various businesses. For example, Capital One bought Discover Financial, which jointly created the nation's largest credit card company. Huntington Bancshares bought Detroit's TCF back in 2021.