Georgia Skyline organizers scrap de novo plan to buy Virginia bank

Organizers of the proposed Georgia Skyline Bank in Roswell have shifted gears and will instead buy and recapitalize Highlands Community Bank in Covington, Va.

The group, which received conditional approval from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in December, now plan to buy the $190 million-asset Highlands. The plan is to still use the charter to serve customers around northern Atlanta.

“This is an extraordinary opportunity for our organizers, our subscribers and, most importantly, the communities we set out to serve,” Ryan Floyd, the proposed president for Georgia Skyline, said in a press release. “Rather than building from the ground up, we’re aligning with an established, successful bank with two decades of history, a sound balance sheet and a loan-to-deposit ratio that gives us real capacity to grow.”

The acquisition offers several advantages over a de novo effort, including a shorter path to growth and profitability, relief from regulatory restrictions tied to newly chartered banks during their first three years, and access to a low-cost deposit base.