Regional banks clash over failed lender

Two of the newer entries to the Gulf Coast banking market, Stearns Bank and Bank of the Ozarks, recently went head-to-head over a failed bank acquisition in Georgia.

St. Cloud, Minn.-based Stearns, with a branch each in Sarasota, St. Petersburg and Venice, won the battle. The prize: Rock Spring, Ga.-based Covenant Bank & Trust, a $95.7 million asset institution federal regulators shuttered March 23. Stearns and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. agreed to a loss-share transaction on $71.6 million of those assets.

Stearns entered the Gulf Coast in August 2009, when it acquired Sarasota-based First State Bank and Venice-based National Bank of Sarasota County, two banks regulators also shut down. Well-known local banker Tramm Hudson is the Florida president for Stearns, which has $1.29 billion in total assets. The bank was founded in Minnesota in 1912.