Region’s largest credit union buys $746 million bank

TAMPA — The four year trend of credit unions buying banks in Florida has moved into a new phase: bigger banks.

This comes from Tampa-based Suncoast Credit Union, a $10.4 billon-dollar institution, which announced Dec. 3 it had acquired Miami-based Apollo Bank. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

Credit union officials, in a statement, called the deal for Apollo, with $746 million in assets, the largest bank acquisition by a credit union in U.S. history. It’s also the 12th credit-union acquisition of a bank in Florida since December 2015, when Dunedin-based Achieva Credit Union bought Charlotte County-based Calusa Bank, which had $165 million in assets.

Apollo Bank, with some 100 employees, was founded in 2010. It currently has five South Florida locations, in Miami’s Brickell Financial District, Doral, Coral Gables, Kendall and Hialeah. The bank has a strong emphasis on commercial banking, according to the statement, and the deal allows the credit union to tap into Florida’s most populous market, which includes a fast-growing Hispanic community.  

“We look forward to the Apollo team joining our organization and continuing to serve their commercial customer base,” Suncoast Credit Union CEO Kevin Johnson says in the statement. “Bringing the benefits of membership offered by Florida’s largest credit union to the diverse cultural population in Miami is a privilege that we take great pride in sharing.”

The transaction is expected to close in 2020, subject to customary closing conditions and shareholder and regulatory approvals. Boards of both financial institutions approved the purchase.

Suncoast Credit Union is the largest credit union in Florida and the eighth largest in the United States based on membership. Chartered in 1934 as Hillsborough County Teachers Credit Union, Suncoast Credit Union currently operates 69 full-service branches and serves more than 866,000 members in more than 20 Florida counties.