Huntington Bancshares has agreed to acquire Cadence Bank in an all-stock transaction valued at USD 7.4 billion, the Columbus, Ohio-based regional bank announced on 27 October 2025. The deal, which would see Cadence Bank shareholders receive 2.475 Huntington shares for each Cadence share they hold, represents one of the more substantial regional bank mergers announced in the United States in recent years and marks a decisive shift in Huntington's geographic ambitions toward the southern part of the country.
Cadence Bank, headquartered in Houston, Texas, held approximately USD 53 billion in assets at the time of the announcement. The addition of that balance sheet to Huntington's existing platform would produce a significantly enlarged institution with broader geographic reach, deeper lending capacity across a new set of markets, and a considerably larger deposit franchise to fund future growth. Huntington said the transaction is expected to be approximately 10% accretive to its earnings per share at the time of closing, a metric that indicates the deal is structured to benefit existing Huntington shareholders in financial terms rather than being a purely strategic bet whose returns are deferred over a long horizon.
STRATEGIC RATIONALE AND SOUTHERN MARKET APPEAL
The strategic rationale for the acquisition centres on Huntington's desire to establish meaningful and durable scale in markets across the US South, a set of geographies where Cadence has built a diversified commercial and consumer banking franchise. Cadence operates across states including Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Florida, markets that have collectively seen above-average population growth, business formation, and economic activity relative to many northern states. For a bank looking to grow its loan book and deposit base beyond its traditional Midwest stronghold, the southern US represents an attractive destination.
Earnings accretion of 10% at closing is a threshold that investors in the regional banking sector watch carefully when evaluating all-stock acquisitions. In a stock-for-stock deal, the acquiring bank dilutes its existing shareholders by issuing new shares to the target's shareholders, and the accretion calculation determines whether the earnings power added by the acquisition outweighs the cost of that dilution. A 10% accretive figure signals that Huntington's management and advisers believe the deal's financial projections support that outcome, though realising that accretion in practice will depend heavily on successful integration execution.
INTEGRATION CHALLENGES AND REGULATORY REVIEW
Integrating an institution of Cadence's size into Huntington's platform involves substantial work across technology systems, branch networks, credit underwriting standards, risk management frameworks, and customer relationships. The cultural and operational gap between a deep-Midwest institution and a southern franchise with different market characteristics adds complexity to the integration process. Management will need to execute carefully to preserve the customer relationships that make Cadence's business valuable while realising the cost efficiencies that justify the deal's financial projections.
The transaction is subject to approval from shareholders of both Huntington and Cadence as well as regulatory clearances from federal and state banking supervisors. Mergers of this scale attract review from the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, among other authorities, with the process typically requiring several months after application. Huntington indicated it expects the transaction to close after the customary review is completed, with all conditions having been satisfied. Successful completion would mark a transformative step in Huntington's evolution from a primarily Midwest-focused regional bank into a institution with a genuinely national franchise extending into some of the most dynamic economic markets in the United States.