MidSouth Bank isn’t stopping in its active role in the region’s acquisition fever, as evidenced by Tuesday’s announcement that the bank will purchase First Louisiana National Bank, headquartered in Breaux Bridge.
According to a release from MidSouth, the purchase agreement calls for an $11.5 million cash payment and 725,000 shares of MidSouth’s common stock to close the deal, which will add roughly $115 million in assets to MidSouth’s portfolio.
“First Louisiana National Bank is a healthy bank with a strong consumer market franchise,” MidSouth Bank President and CEO Rusty Cloutier says in the release. “We are confident there are tremendous opportunities to increase lending in St. Martin Parish, by leveraging access to MidSouth’s additional products and services, supported by a more technologically advanced banking platform and a much larger network of retail banking centers and ATMs.”
First La. National’s Lafayette location will close and merge with a nearby MidSouth branch on Moss Street. The MidSouth operations center in Breaux Bridge at 728 Berard St. will expand once the acquisition is final, but MidSouth’s Breaux Bridge banking operations will move from its Berard Street location to First La. National’s Mills Avenue branch. First Louisiana National in St. Martinville will remain open after the purchase.
Although MidSouth is headquartered in Lafayette, the regional financial institution is no stranger to the Breaux Bridge/St. Martin market. Cloutier points out that MidSouth’s purchase of Breaux Bridge Bank and Trust in 1987 helped pave the way for the bank’s expansion from a $28 million bank almost 25 years ago to a bank with $1.2 billion in assets as of July 31.
“We’re a tight-knit community, and MidSouth Bank shares our banking philosophy,” says First Louisiana National Bank Chairman Randy P. Angelle. “That is why we are confident this transaction will be good for our shareholders and employees, and — importantly— for our customers.”
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
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