American Bank and National Exchange Bank & Trust will complete their merger under the National Exchange name on Monday, Sept. 12.
Dick Hensley, president for southeast Wisconsin at American Bank, confirmed the completion timeline today.
“We will transition out of our American Bank systems at the close of business on Friday and then over the weekend, all the systems converge and then we open up as National Exchange Bank on Monday,” Hensley said.
The banks are both owned by Fond du Lac-based NEB Corp., so the merger will involve collapsing one of the charters and converting to the same system. American Bank acquired Waukesha-based InvestorsBank in 2014.
American Bank has six Wisconsin locations, one of which is in Waukesha. With the merger, several more southeastern Wisconsin locations will become available to its customers—National Exchange Bank’s two branches in West Bend, as well as branches in Sheboygan Falls, Cedar Grove, Adell and Cascade in Sheboygan County and a branch in Allenton in Washington County.
National Exchange has 27 branch locations. The combined bank will have about 400 employees and about $2 billion in assets, Hensley said.
In addition to the systems, the signage on American Bank will also change over to National Exchange Monday, he said.
While there will be some additional amenities available to customers, they will likely not notice much difference, Hensley said.
“The transition from InvestorsBank to American Bank went flawlessly. Customers were ecstatic,” Hensley said. “If this transition goes as well as that one did, everybody will be very pleased. There’s another name change, but for all intents and purposes it’s just a name change.”
NEB expects to realize cost savings from the merger, though there are no employee reductions or branch closure plans at this time, Hensley said.
As previously announced, National Exchange president and chief operating officer Mike Burch will retire after the merger and Jim Chatterton, current American Bank chief executive officer, will succeed him in the roles. Peter Stone, current NEB Corp. chairman and CEO, will serve as chairman of the merged bank. His son, Eric Stone, will serve as CEO.
“The cost of regulatory compliance and so forth continues to increase for all banks and as part of that process, we in essence have to incur double the costs when you have two banks in the same holding company,” Hensley said.
