Minnesota bank enters Fort Myers

Minnesota-based Central Bank grew out of the last recession when Naples part-time resident John Morrison acquired the struggling bank with the help of regulators in 1988.

Now healthy, the Stillwater, Minn.-based bank is growing, again courtesy of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Its most recent acquisition: Commerce Bank of Southwest Florida in Fort Myers.

“We've acquired three banks through the FDIC process,” says Larry Albert, president of Central Bank, referring to recent FDIC-assisted bank acquisitions in Minnesota totaling about $400 million in assets.