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Peoples in Ohio to buy equipment leasing firm

Peoples Bancorp in Marietta, Ohio, has agreed to buy Vantage Financial, a nationwide provider of equipment financing. 


The $7.1 billion-asset Peoples said in a press release Wednesday that it will pay $54 million in cash for the Excelsior, Minn., lender. Peoples will also repay about $21 million of recourse debt on behalf of Vantage.

The deal is expected to close next month.

Vantage, which was founded in 2011, offers mid-ticket equipment leases mostly for IT equipment across a variety of industries. The company has about $147 million of lease assets on Dec. 31. 

Vantage will become a subsidiary of Peoples Bank and most of its current leadership and associates are expected to stay after the deal closes, including William Foudray, its co-founder and CEO. 

Bob Murphy, Vantage’s co-founder and chairman, plans to retire. 

Peoples said it expects the deal to be 3% accretive to its 2022 earnings per share and 6% accretive the following year. It should take less than four years for Peoples to earn back a projected 8% dilution to its tangible book value. 

“The addition of Vantage … will allow us to build upon our recent success with our North Star Leasing acquisition, while also becoming a top 100 U.S. leasing business based on combined assets,” Chuck Sulerzyski, Peoples’ president and CEO, said in the release. 

Peoples was advised by Hovde Group and Squire Patton Boggs (US). Vantage and its equity owners were advised by Cherry Tree & Associates and Barack Ferrazzano Kirschbaum & Nagelberg.

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