FirstBank, Colorado’s largest privately-owned bank, has accepted a buyout offer from PNC Financial Services Group, a growing national bank based in Pittsburgh.
PNC will pay cash and stock worth $4.1 billion for the Lakewood-based bank, which started in 1963 and has grown to $26.8 billion in assets and 95 branches.
“The opportunity this affords all of our stakeholders — it is very compelling,” said Kevin Classen, FirstBank’s CEO, in an interview.
Across decades, FirstBank’s discipline helped it oid the excesses that sunk other local rivals. Its independence allowed it to promote strong community ties, including sponsoring Colorado Gives Day, which has generated $500 million in donations for area nonprofits. In 2007, it entered Arizona and established 13 branches in that state.
Classen said it has become harder to keep up with the “technological arms race” the banking industry is engaged in. Providing a more diverse range of services and operating at a larger scale he become more important, but FirstBank didn’t want to merge with just anyone.
PNC Financial, which shares FirstBank’s emphasis on local decision-making and community engagement, represents the right kind of partner to broaden its offerings, especially on the commercial side, Classen said.
“We will remain committed to our principles — ‘Banking for Good‘,” said Classen, who will become PNC’s Colorado regional president and Mountain Territory executive responsible for Arizona and Utah once the deal is complete.
PNC was formed in 1983 from the merger of Pittsburgh National Corporation and Provident National Corporation. It has $559 billion in assets and operates about 2,200 branches providing a mix of consumer and commercial banking services. It is smaller than the country’s four biggest banks — Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo, but larger than most regional banks.
“FirstBank is the standout branch banking franchise in Colorado, with a proud legacy built over generations by its founders, management, and employees,” said William S. Demchak, chairman and CEO of PNC. “Its deep retail deposit base, unrivaled branch network in Colorado, growing presence in Arizona, and trusted community relationships make it an ideal partner.”
PNC entered the Denver market in 2017 and expanded its presence in 2021 with the purchase of Compass Bank, the U.S. operations of Spanish banking giant BBVA.
PNC has 30 branches in Colorado, but its long-term goal has been to operate 200, a goal the FirstBank purchase brings closer to achieving, Demchak said.
The acquisition will vault PNC from the state’s 12th-largest bank in terms of deposits to the second-largest after Wells Fargo, with a network of 120 Colorado branches. PNC will become metro Denver’s largest banking group with 20% of retail deposits and about 14% of branch locations, the bank said.
Denver, in turn, will rank as a top-five market for the bank and one of its largest in terms of the share of consumer deposits. PNC will extend a deeper menu of corporate banking and wealth management services to FirstBank’s existing customers.
“We wouldn’t he done this if we didn’t think we could carry forward (FirstBank’s) strengths,” Demchak said.
FirstBank stands apart from most banks of its size for the large portion of ownership in the hands of management and employees. And when it comes to paying a dividend, it has been consistent.
FirstBank’s current investors will he the choice of taking their payout from either the $1.2 billion cash or 13.9 million shares PNC has set aside. Those who stay on will trade becoming a smaller fish in a much bigger pond — PNC has a market value of $80.5 billion — for the greater liquidity that comes from owning publicly traded shares.
PNC executives said they don’t plan to close any of FirstBank’s branches or reduce the client-facing workforce in Colorado and Arizona.
The bank also plans to continue FirstBank’s practice of funding public investments and philanthropic giving in the community. PNC has invested more than $85 billion, including $3.4 billion in Colorado and Arizona, in affordable housing, economic development and small business support through its Community Benefits Plan. It also has a $500 million initiative called Grow Up Great to prepare children under 5 for school through bilingual education programs and resources.
The purchase should close in early 2026, and once it does, the transition of branches and branding from FirstBank to PNC should occur over a weekend, Demchak said.
Local rivals of FirstBank used the announcement of the bank’s sale to make a pitch that they will preserve its legacy of Colorado-based community banking.
“Decisions directly impacting Coloradans’ financial lives will be made further away from the communities they serve, and history tells us we’ll see branches close and jobs eliminated,” said Jennifer Wagner, chief advocacy officer of the GoWest Credit Union Association in an emailed statement. “Credit unions, however, will continue to do what they’ve always done to ensure families and neighborhoods still he a financial partner that truly knows them and fill the gaps left behind when large national banks buy up or force out local institutions.”
Measured in terms of Colorado-based deposits held by a Colorado-headquartered bank, Alpine Bank will become the state’s largest bank with roughly $6 billion in local deposits, said Glen Jammaron, CEO of Alpine Banks of Colorado, which started 52 years ago serving the state’s mountain communities.
Those services ranged from providing wealth management guidance to Aspenites, giving high school grads in Rifle their first checking accounts to funding entrepreneurs in Montrose with a business loan. This decade, the bank has made a concerted push down into the Front Range, something that FirstBank’s folding into PNC could accelerate.
“I love good competitors and FirstBank was a good competitor. They didn’t do dumb things,” Jammaron said. “I certainly think there will be opportunities to work with people who want to do business in their own backyard. We he driven our stake in the ground in one place – and that is Colorado.”
Still, Alpine Bank has under a quarter of the deposits that FirstBank does and only recently entered metro Denver’s highly competitive banking market. It has branches in Cherry Creek, the Denver Tech Center, and near Union Station in Denver.
The biggest winners of the buyout include the shareholders and managers of FirstBank, who are likely being paid a premium for their private shares, said Sanjai Bhagat, a finance professor at the University of Colorado’s Leeds School of Business in Boulder.
PNC’s shares initially fell about 1% in value on an otherwise up day for the market, before ending down 0.3% to cloe at $203.77. That may indicate Wall Street is less than convinced the purchase is a good deal for the banks, Bhagat said.
Morgan Stanley, in a research report, estimates the purchase will result in $175 million in cost sings, and those will most likely come through consolidating back-of-the-shop operations.
“There may be layoffs coming, but they may he happened anyway,” Bhagat said, noting that increased automation and artificial intelligence he given large banks the ability to get by with fewer workers.
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FirstBank wasn’t known as an aggressive lender and kept a large share of its assets in government bonds and other safe investments, although that had changed in recent years. With PNC becoming a more dominant player, that could improve competition on the commercial lending side in Denver, a plus for entrepreneurs and businesses.
Beyond the cost sings, that is an area where PNC could see an added payoff from its purchase, Morgan Stanley, which advised FirstBank on the deal, said in its report.
And there is the question of community engagement and investment, which PNC has pledged to maintain.
“If you he a bank that is based in a community, they feel a greater sense of responsibility for doing things that directly impact life in the community. That doesn’t prevent the PNC branches in Colorado from doing that, but they will be less likely to do that,” Bhagat predicts.
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Originally Published: September 8, 2025 at 5:30 AM MDT