JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — EverBank Financial has reached an agreement to pursue a “reverse merger” with Seattle-based WaFd that would create a regional bank with approximately $75 billion in assets.
Under the deal, WaFd, formerly known as Washington Federal Bank, would remain the publicly traded company but would change its name to EverBank Financial and trade under the ticker symbol EVBK, the Wall Street Journal reported.
EverBank has approximately $47 billion in assets and a valuation of about $3.9 billion, while WaFd has roughly $28 billion in assets and a market capitalization of approximately $2.7 billion.
The combination would place the resulting institution among the 50 largest U.S. banks by assets.
EverBank Owners Would Control Majority Stake
EverBank was acquired from pension fund TIAA in 2023 by a group of private-equity investors that includes Stone Point Capital, Warburg Pincus, Reverence Capital Partners, Sixth Street and Bayview Asset Management.
The Journal previously reported that the investors had been considering options for exiting their investment, including a sale or an initial public offering.
Under the WaFd transaction, those investors and TIAA, which retained a stake in EverBank following the 2023 transaction, would collectively own approximately 59.2% of the combined company, according to the Journal.
The structure effectively would give EverBank’s owners a controlling interest while allowing the combined institution to remain publicly traded through WaFd.
CEOs Cite Need for Greater Scale
The proposed combination comes as banking executives increasingly argue that greater scale is necessary to absorb rising technology, regulatory and other operating costs.
EverBank CEO Greg Seibly and WaFd CEO Brent Beardall discussed the importance of scale when they first met over dinner to explore a possible transaction, the Journal reported.
“You’ve got to be bigger to be able to survive,” Seibly told the Journal, adding that many banks are “staring down the same thing.”
The two institutions also bring substantially different business models and geographic footprints to the transaction.
EverBank operates primarily as a digital bank, supplemented by several dozen branches concentrated largely in Florida and California. WaFd, based in Seattle, operates more than 200 branches across Washington, Oregon and other Western states.
“The strength on one side complements a gap on the other
