BB&T Acquires Florida Bank for $5.4 Billion

Winston-Salem based BB&T is acquiring part of Florida’s BankAtlantic.

The bank will pay $300 million in exchange for nearly $5.5 billion in loans and deposits. The North Carolina company will not take on any loans at risk of default or bad assets in the merger. BB&T CFO Darryl Bible says the acquisition is ultimately safe.

Darryl Bible: "They separated the good bank form the bad bank. BB&T is acquiring all the good assets from BankAtlantic, about 2.1 billion dollars. BankAtlantic is basically retaining all the non performing assets."

BB&T also gets 78 bank branches in Southeast Florida. Bible says BB&T's hopes to integrate Bank Atlantic in early 2012.