BB&T buying more Texas branches from Citigroup

BB&T Corp. is again adding branches to its Texas footprint, announcing on Wednesday a deal to buy 41 branches in the state from Citibank.

The Winston-Salem lender said it has signed an agreement to acquire the branches in the Dallas, Houston, Midland and Odessa markets. Through the deal, BB&T will also acquire $2.3 billion in deposits and $87 million in loans.

Wednesday's announcement comes just three months after BB&T purchased nearly two dozen Texas branches from Citibank, the largest banking subsidiary of New York-based Citigroup.

It's the latest push by BB&T, the third-largest lender by deposits in the Charlotte region, to grow its presence in Texas, which it entered through its 2009 takeover of Colonial Bank after the Alabama bank failed.

Wednesday's deal boosts BB&T's branches in Texas to 123 and its deposits in the state to $5.3 billion. In a separate deal completed in June, BB&T acquired 21 Citibank branches in Texas.

Citigroup said Wednesday that its footprint of branches in Texas didn't provide the scale to capture future growth and market share in traditional retail banking.

"We see the retail banking industry rapidly evolving beyond a purely branch-based model, and so we will dedicate our resources and investments on a more focused branch footprint in our major urban markets and on expanding our digital channels nationally," spokesman Andrew Brent said in a statement.

Brent said Texas remains "a vibrant growth state" for Citi and is home to the lender's second-largest concentration of employees in the U.S.

He said the sale announced on Wednesday is expected to close in the first quarter of 2015.

In addition to traditional banking, BB&T has other operations in Texas, including services offered by its insurance brokerage and other subsidiaries. The latest Citibank deal brings BB&T's total employees in Texas to about 2,050.

During a presentation to investors in September, BB&T CEO Kelly King called Texas a “big, whopping opportunity for us.”