Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Limited (ASX:BEN) is poised to buy the business and assets of Victoria’s Rural Finance Corporation for $1.78 billion.
The Brisbane-based regional lender has entered into trading halt ahead of a $230 million capital raising.
Bendigo and Adelaide Bank expects the purchase will have a value of about $1.695 billion when the deal is tied up in mid-July.
Managing Director Mike Hirst says Rural Finance will work together with the bank’s existing specialist agricultural business.
Bendigo and Adelaide Bank reported a net profit of $181 million in the first half of the 2014 financial year.
