Wells Fargo & Co. is paying an estimated $645 million in stock to buy the parent company of Bank of Orange County.
Wells Fargo is buying Sacramento-based Placer Sierra Bancshares, which runs Anaheim-based Bank of Orange County as part of its Placer Sierra Bank.
The deal is expected to close by midyear. The buy gives Wells Fargo Placer Sierra’s 50 branches throughout California,including Bank of Orange County’s 18 local branches.
Placer Sierra’s shareholders are set to trade their shares for an as-yet undetermined number of Wells Fargo shares. The ratio will be set by stock prices in the next 20 days.
Placer Sierra Bank has about $2.6 billion in assets and 650 workers. It serves small and midsize businesses. It bought Bank of Orange County in 2004.
San Francisco-based Wells Fargo is the second largest bank operating in OC after Bank of America Corp.
Wells Fargo has about $9 billion in local deposits and 83 OC branches.
