Staff Report
Published April 25, 2012

SCBT Financial Corp., parent of South Carolina Bank & Trust, said Tuesday it has completed the $28.4 million acquisition of Easley-based Peoples Bancorp. and its three banking subsidiaries.

With the merger, SCB&T ranks as the sixth largest bank in South Carolina by deposit market share and the seventh largest in the Upstate. SCB&T now has $4.5 billion in assets, $3.8 billion in total deposits, and $3.2 billion in total loans.

SCBT added eight full-service banking locations in the Upstate, including stores in Pickens, Anderson, Greenville and Oconee counties.

SCB&T now operates 78 offices in South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia. Twenty-eight of those offices are in counties along Interstate 85 connecting Charlotte, Greenville and Atlanta.

The acquisition, first announced Dec. 20, calls for Peoples shareholders to receive 0.1413 shares of SCBT common stock in exchange for each Peoples share they own, or an aggregate of approximately 1 million shares of SCBT common stock.

The stock issuance is valued at $28.4 million in the aggregate, based on 7.12 million shares of Peoples Bancorp. common stock outstanding.

SCBT also repurchased $13.4 million of TARP preferred stock that Peoples had outstanding, said Robert Hill Jr., SCBT president and CEO.

“The shareholder support of the Peoples merger has been very strong,” Hill said. “We are fortunate to add such a great bank to the SCBT franchise. We welcome the customers and employees of Peoples Bancorp. Inc.”

Founded in 1933, SCBT is the largest publicly traded bank headquartered in South Carolina.