EverBank Financial Corp. (EVER) said its EverBank subsidiary will buy GE Capital Real Estate‘s (GE) Business Property Lending unit for $2.51 billion in cash.
Business Property Lending originates and services commercial real estate loans for properties that are owned or leased by small to medium-sized businesses.
The transaction allows EverBank to speed up its growth initiatives by pulling in $2.44 billion of performing commercial loans as part of the deal. The transaction also includes all of Business Property Lending’s origination and servicing platforms in addition to servicing rights on $3.1 billion loans securitized by GE Capital Real Estate, North America.
“Today’s announcement represents a compelling strategic expansion into business property lending in key metropolitan areas where EverBank currently has significant lending, leasing and deposit customers,” said Robert Clements, chairman of the board and CEO of EverBank. “We believe this fully integrated, high-quality franchise will accelerate EverBank’s strategic growth plans and will further enhance and diversify our robust, nationwide asset generation capabilities.”
The transaction is expected to add to the firm’s earnings-per-share, with EverBank suggesting the deal will lead to “immediate low double-digit earnings-per-share accretion” and a pro forma tier common ratio of 11.8%.
Business Property owns 14 offices that are part of the deal. Those offices are located in Washington state, parts of California, Chicago, St. Louis, Austin,Texas; Houston, Georgia, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Florida.
