Anchor Bank completed the sale of four branches in the Green Bay area to Nicolet National Bank, Green Bay, last Friday, parent company Anchor BanCorp Wisconsin said Tuesday. Under terms of the agreement, Nicolet took over $105 million in deposits.
In June, Anchor sold 11 branches in northwest Wisconsin to Royal Credit Union, Eau Claire, involving $177 million in assets.
That leaves the Madison financial institution with 57 locations, mainly in southern Wisconsin, the Milwaukee area and the Fox River Valley.
Selling the branches has been a key step in improving Anchor's capitalization, said chief executive officer Chris Bauer. "Additional steps we have taken to realign our balance sheet include conservative lending, focusing our mortgage origination efforts only on saleable loan products, and sales of assets such as our indirect auto loan portfolio and portions of our student loan portfolio," Bauer said.
The transactions leave Anchor BanCorp with assets of about $4.15 billion, retaining its position as the fourth largest financial institution in Wisconsin — behind M&I (Marshall & Ilsley), Associated and Johnson banks — according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Anchor, which has struggled with bad commercial real estate loans, is under orders from federal regulators to improve its capital ratios or face fines or "other enforcement actions."
