Oritani Financial Corp. (ORIT), the holding company for Oritani Savings Bank, said Wednesday that it has agreed to buy Greater Community Bancorp (GFLS), the holding company for Greater Community Bank, for $187 million in cash and stock.
Under the terms of the deal, Greater Community shareholders will receive $21.40 per share, which represents a 48.6% premium to Greater Community's closing price of $14.40 on Tuesday. The consideration mix will be 60% stock and 40% cash.
Charles Volpe and Alfred Urbano, two directors at Greater Community, will join Oritani's board of directors. Anthony Bruno, Greater Community's chairman, president and chief executive officer, will assist the bank through the acquisition, and then resign to pursue other interests.
Greater Community Bank will be merged into Oritani Savings Bank, which will be renamed Oritani Community Bank. The combined bank will have $2.3 billion in assets and 36 branches. There is no expected branch consolidation.
The deal is expected to close during Oritani's fiscal fourth quarter of 2008, ending June 30, 2008.
Oritani said it expects the acquisition to be at least 20% accretive to its fiscal 2009 earnings per share and 40% accretive to its cash earnings per share for the period.
Once the deal is complete, Oritani said it expects to have about 42% of its outstanding shares publicly traded and 58% owned privately by Oritani Financial Corp. MHC.
Oritani shares are currently trading at $14.75, down $2.32 or 13.59%, while shares of Greater Community Bancorp are currently trading at $20.00, up $5.60 or 38.89%.
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