The $3.2 billion-asset company agreed to pay $32 million in cash and stock for Lafayette Community Bancorp in a deal that is expected to close in the third quarter.
Regulators have hinted that they're warming up to the idea of startups, but industry veteran George Groves is raising money to buy an existing bank because he fears the approval process will take too long.
Union Bankshares is poised to become a nearly $12 billion-asset bank in a state that lost most of its midsize institutions in the 1990s and early 2000s.
