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Western Sierra Bancorp agreed this week to buy a Red Bluff bank for $22 million in a move that will increase Western Sierra's assets by $170 million - about 30 percent.
Tuesday's announcement of a definitive agreement to buy Mid Valley Bank marks the fifth bank purchase Western Sierra has engineered in five years, quickly building what had been a small bank in Cameron Park into a regional player with branches stretching from Sonora to Redding.
"We are still talking to others," said Gary Gall, chief executive of Western Sierra Bancorp. He said Western Sierra has an "acquisition team" to handle "acquiring -opportunities," and added that he expects Western Sierra to add a bank a year to its holding company and to reach $1 billion in assets in 2003.
The acquisition will give Western Sierra Bancorp (Nasdaq: WSBA) assets in excess of $770 million. The merger is expected to be accretive to Western Sierra, meaning it will add income to the bank at the end of the fourth quarter. Western Sierra stock ended trading Wednesday at $28.05, up 75 percent from the beginning of the year and up 115 percent from a year ago.
"Mid Valley is a great bank that has always been a great earner - except for last year when they got into some trouble with ag lending," said David Harvey, principal of Hot Creek Capital LLC, a Gardnerville, Nev.-based hedge-fund manager in community bank investments. "This is a good fit for Western Sierra. It plants their flag in...