Article: Union Planters Buying St. Louis Bank for $2.3B.

Union Planters Corp. made a strong bid to join the ranks of superregional banking companies with an agreement to buy Magna Group of St. Louis for $2.3 billion.

The all-stock transaction, expected to close in the third quarter, would be the largest ever by Memphis-based Union Planters and its 64th acquisition since 1992. Nine of those deals remain pending.

Magna's $7.1 billion of assets would bring Union Planters' total to $28.5 billion, a size and scope that it hopes will differentiate it from a pack of smaller companies vying for a higher profile in the region.

But Union Planters is no less vulnerable to being viewed as a target in its own right, an ...

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