Heartland Financial USA Inc. in Dubuque recently announced it has entered into a definitive merger agreement with Texas-based bank holding company AIM Bancshares Inc. in which Heartland will acquire ABI and its wholly-owned subsidiary, AimBank, for approximately $280.4 million.

AimBank, a full-service community bank based in Levelland, Texas, had approximately $1.78 billion in total assets as of year-end 2019. The bank serves Lubbock, Midland-Odessa, Amarillo, Abilene and other surrounding West Texas communities from 19 full-service banking centers. AimBank also has six full-service banking centers in Northeastern New Mexico. Upon completion of the merger, AimBank will merge with and into Heartland’s existing Texas subsidiary, FirstBank & Trust in Lubbock, which operates eight full-service banking centers in West Texas. The combination of AimBank and FirstBank & Trust will create Heartland’s largest bank subsidiary with assets of almost $3 billion and 33 banking centers serving West Texas and Northeastern New Mexico. The bank subsidiary will operate under the FirstBank & Trust brand. 

After completing the acquisition of ABI, which is expected early in the third quarter, Heartland Financial will have total assets of approximately $15 billion with 140 full-service banking locations operating in 12 states. In January, the company reported record annual net income available to common stockholders of $149.1 million, a 28% increase from 2018.