The Illinois company will pay about $10 million, and redeem $23.5 million in trust-preferred stock, as part of the deal.
Community Bank of the Carolinas must raise about $4 million before becoming the state’s first new bank since the financial crisis.
Big bank mergers have historically been a catalyst for startups. Experts say it could happen again.
Loyal Trust Bank will have a large number of Asian-American investors and board members.
The Mississippi company will pay more than $200 million for the parent companies of Texas Star Bank and Summit Bank.
The former credit union will shed its mutual status when it becomes a fully stock-owned company.
Gulf Atlantic Bank would be the eighth bank in the market, and just the second with local ownership.
Several groups have gone public with plans to start a bank since the state enacted a law to make it easier, but none have actually filed with the FDIC.
Steans, a former LaSalle Bank chairman who also led the financial crisis recapitalization that saved Taylor Capital, died on Tuesday. He was 83.
The industry's largest acquisition in more than a decade will create the sixth-biggest bank in the country, with assets of more than $442 billion.
