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Saturday, January 18, 2025

Mount Airy’s Surrey Bank bought by Virginia peer

Mount Airy-based Surrey Bancorp, which has six offices in northwest North Carolina and one in Virginia, has agreed to sell to Bluefield, Va.-based First Community Bankshares for $113.2 million.

Surrey’s $500 million in assets would expand First Community to a total of about $3.6 billion. Pending regulatory approval, the deal will close in the second quarter of 2023.

Surrey was formed in 1996 by Mount Airy business executives. It has been led since 2003 by CEO Ted Ashby, 68. He will join the First Community board, while Pedro Pequeno, who became Surrey’s president in March, will join the acquirer. The company reported a $5.2 million profit in the first nine months of 2022.

Surrey’s sale would leave just Oak Ridge Financial Services in Guilford County and Winston-Salem-based Piedmont Federal Savings Bank as the only traditional community banks headquartered in the Triad region, the Winston-Salem Journal reported. Winston-Salem-based Truliant Federal Credit Union is among the state’s biggest credit unions.

Surrey shares surged from $15 early Friday to close at $25.75. The stock is very rarely traded. The company’s largest shareholders are Tamra Thomas, with 11.3% and Betty Wright, with 10.3%, according to the bank’s 2021 proxy. Thomas is the daughter of one of the bank’s founding directors, Hylton Wright. Ashby had a 4.5% stake, according to the proxy.

Surrey has offices in Mount Airy, Elkin, North Wilkesboro, Pilot Mountain and Stuart, Virginia. First Community’s N.C. branches include sites in Banner Elk, Boone, Elkin, Hays, Mount Airy, Sparta and Taylorsville.

First Community’s roots date to 1874. It operates about 50 branches in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia.

 

 

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