The financially troubled Heritage Bank of North Florida was closed by regulators Friday, with its $108.5 million in deposits acquired by Jacksonville-based FirstAtlantic Bank.
Heritage Bank’s main office in Orange Park and its one other branch in Ponte Vedra Beach reopened today as branches of FirstAtlantic. Heritage Bank depositors automatically became depositors of FirstAtlantic.
Heritage Bank originally opened as Clay County Bank in 1986, and changed its name to Heritage in 2000. It opened the Ponte Vedra Beach branch the next year.
The bank’s operations deteriorated during the financial crisis and recession that began in 2007, and it recorded a net loss in each of the past five years.
After a net loss of $1.9 million in 2012, its tier 1 capital ratio fell to 1.75 percent, according to its year-end report filed with banking regulators.
Tier 1 capital is one of several ways regulators measure capital, and it consists basically of a bank’s stockholders’ equity.
The bank’s level of non-current loans – loans in which the borrower is at least 90 days overdue or not paying at all – reached 23.13 percent of all loans at the end of 2012.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Heritage Bank was the seventh FDIC-insured institution in the U.S. to fail this year, and the first in Florida. However, later on Friday, Chipola Community Bank in Marianna became the second Florida bank closed down by regulators. First Federal Bank of Florida in Lake City acquired the deposits of Chipola Community Bank.
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