West Virginia’s City Holding buying two in Kentucky

Charleston, W.V.-based City Holding Company is buying a pair of Kentucky banks in two separate deals, it announced last week.

City will acquire Poage Bankshares, Inc., the parent company of Town Square Bank, Ashland, Ky., in an all-stock deal worth $93.5 million. Under a second agreement, City will pay $24.9 million in cash for Farmers Deposit Bancorp, Inc., the parent company of Farmers Deposit Bank, Cynthiana, Ky.

The combined bank will have $4.8 billion in assets, deposits of $3.9 billion and gross loans of $3.5 billion, bolstering City’s presence in the Huntington-Ashland and Lexington, Ky., MSAs. “Our leadership recognized these partnerships as strategic next steps for enhancing our market presence throughout Kentucky and we are fortunate to be making this move forward,” said Charles R. (Skip) Hageboeck, president and CEO of the $4.2 billion City.

City currently has 86 branches across West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio. The $450 million Town Square has nine branches in Boyd, Greenup, Jessamine, Lawrence and Montgomery counties, and the $122 million Farmers Deposit has three branches in Harrison and Nicholas counties.

Following close of the deals, both expected in the fourth quarter, the two banks will both merge into City’s subsidiary City National Bank of West Virginia. Bruce VanHorn, president, CEO and director of Poage, will join City in an unspecified role.

Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc. served as financial advisor and Dinsmore & Shohl LLP served as legal counsel to City in both transactions. Sandler O’Neill & Partners served as financial advisor and Luse Gorman, PC served as legal counsel to Poage in the Poage transaction. ProBank Austin served as financial advisor and Stites & Harbison, PLLC served as legal counsel to Farmers Deposit in the Farmers Deposit transaction.