EverBank Financial and WaFd have agreed to a $3.9 billion reverse merger that will leave WaFd as the public legal survivor while handing economic control, the name and much of the leadership of the combined company to EverBank. Announced on September 7, the stock transaction is designed to create a roughly $75 billion-asset regional bank with national digital reach and a dense western branch network.
The mechanics explain why the deal is more than a conventional bank merger. EverBank Financial will merge into Nasdaq-listed WaFd, whose shares will remain publicly traded. WaFd will then adopt the EverBank Financial Corp name and the ticker EVBK. At the bank level, WaFd Bank will merge into EverBank, N.A., which will retain its national charter. The companies have designated EverBank as the accounting acquirer.
That structure places EverBank’s current investor group in control of a publicly traded company. Funds managed by Stone Point Capital, Warburg Pincus, Reverence Capital Partners, Sixth Street and Bayview Asset Management, together with TIAA, are expected to own 59.2% of the combined company. Existing WaFd shareholders would own 40.8%. The governance balance points in the same direction: seven of the 13 directors will represent legacy EverBank, while six will come from WaFd.
The strategic case rests on combining two funding models. EverBank reported $46.7 billion in assets and $37.7 billion in deposits as of June 30, supported by an online banking platform and financial centers in California, Florida and New York. WaFd reported $27.6 billion in assets and $21 billion in deposits, with more than 200 branches across nine western states. Together, the banks expect approximately $59 billion in deposits, $58 billion in loans and 254 locations across 11 states.
For WaFd, the attraction is access to EverBank’s nationwide consumer deposit engine and specialty commercial businesses. For EverBank, WaFd contributes local commercial relationships, substantial western distribution and experience in commercial real estate lending. Both institutions have been shifting their loan mix toward commercial banking. WaFd has also shown a willingness to grow through consolidation, including its 2024 acquisition of California-based Luther Burbank Savings.
Management’s financial targets are ambitious. The companies project that the merged bank can produce a return on tangible common equity of about 15% after expected cost savings are fully realized. They also forecast roughly 29% accretion to WaFd’s 2027 earnings per share and expect tangible book value dilution to be earned back in less than two years. Those figures are forecasts, not guaranteed outcomes, and they make integration execution central to the investment case.
The leadership arrangement reinforces that point. EverBank Chief Executive Greg Seibly is set to become CEO of the combined company, while WaFd CEO Brent Beardall will become president. EverBank Chairman Robert Radway will chair the new board. Investors will therefore be relying primarily on EverBank’s leadership to convert a much larger balance sheet into the projected returns while integrating institutions with different geographic footprints and customer channels.
Regulatory approval and WaFd shareholder approval are still required, and the parties are targeting an early 2027 closing. The combination would unite a digital and specialty lender with a century-old branch bank, but scale alone will not deliver the promised economics. The decisive tests will be whether deposits remain stable, clients stay through the integration and management captures efficiencies without weakening service or credit discipline.
The deal’s wider significance is that it treats distribution as a portfolio rather than a choice between branches and digital banking. EverBank gains physical reach where WaFd is established, while WaFd gains a broader digital funding platform and specialty products. If the transaction closes and the targets hold, the resulting EverBank will have used a reverse merger to solve three strategic problems at once: public-market access, geographic expansion and operating scale.