Virginia bank to acquire Olney-based Sandy Spring Bank for $1.6 billion

A Virginia banking company plans to acquire Maryland-based Sandy Spring Bancorp in a deal valued at about $1.6 billion, creating one of the mid-Atlantic region’s largest banks and cementing the merged bank’s presence in Maryland and Northern Virginia.

Atlantic Union Bankshares Corp., based in Richmond, said it entered an all-stock merger agreement with Olney-based Sandy Spring, the eighth-largest bank in the Baltimore region and the seventh largest in the state, based on deposits.

Founded in 1868, Sandy Spring had $14.4 billion in assets, $11.7 billion in total deposits and $11.5 billion in total loans as of Sept. 30. The combined company will have $39.2 billion in assets, $32.0 billion in deposits and $29.8 billion in loans, based on data as of Sept. 30.

Sandy Spring, a community bank offering commercial and retail banking and mortgages, has more than 50 locations in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, including Baltimore-area locations, such as Towson, Columbia, Ellicott City, Edgewater, Glen Burnie and Laurel.

The bank is the eighth largest in the Baltimore metro area, with $2.3 billion in deposits and 11 branches in Anne Arundel, Howard, Baltimore and Carroll counties, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. .

Daniel J. Schrider, Sandy Spring’s chairman, president and CEO, called the merger the “right long-term decision” for shareholders, clients and employees and said the two banking companies share a “people-first approach to doing business and serving our communities.”

Atlantic Union, which has 135 locations in three states, including 22 branches in the greater Washington area, said it laid groundwork several years ago to create a regional bank that spans the mid-Atlantic to the Southeast.

“Part of our long-term vision was to complete the ‘Golden Crescent’ from Baltimore, through Washington D.C. and Richmond to Hampton Roads and recreate a banking franchise that had not existed since the 1990s,” said John C. Asbury, Atlantic Union’s president and CEO, in the news release announcing the deal.

The merger agreement calls for each outstanding share of Sandy Spring common stock to be converted into the right to receive 0.9 shares of Atlantic Union common stock, a value of about $34.93 per Sandy Spring share. That’s based on Atlantic Union’s closing stock price on Friday. Shares of Atlantic Union closed at $36.44 each Tuesday, up 23 cents.

Schrider and two other members of Sandy Spring’s board will join Atlantic Union’s board after the deal is finalized. Each company’s board has approved the merger, which still requires regulator and shareholder approvals and is expected to close by the end of the third quarter next year.

Contact Lorraine Mirabella at [e-mail], 410-332-6672 and @lmirabella on X.