The signs are up, and the com­puters are talking to each other. As of early August, CresCom Bank is officially part of Washington, D.C.- based United Bank. The merger process began last November, when United Bankshares Inc., the parent company of United Bank, and Carolina Financial Corp., the parent company of Charleston, South Carolina-based CresCom Bank, announced a definitive merger agreement.
 
Thxe combined organization has about $25 billion in assets and ranks in the top 35 largest banks in the U.S. based on market capitalization, according to a release in May, when the legal transaction closed. The combined company operates 230 of­fices in West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and the nation’s capital. Seven of those offices are in the Wilmington market; two are in Wilmington itself.
 
“Much of what was CresCom will remain intact,” said Wilmington Market President Marshall Cooper. “Jerry Rexroad, our former CEO, is a director, executive vice president and chairman of United’s Carolinas region. The entire senior executive team of CresCom remains in mean­ingful roles with United Bank. [Unit­ed] acquired us to achieve market diversification: we operate in eight to 10 of the most dynamic markets in the Southeast.”
 
Because its merger with United Bank brings more resources and greater scale to the former CresCom, the communities it serves in the Wilmington market will see a greater investment in the community and continued local decision-making, Cooper said.
 
“United Bank has a focus on the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), and we’ll be involved in philanthropy and banking partner­ships,” he said.
 
The CRA is a federal law enact­ed in 1977 to encourage depository institutions to meet the credit needs of low- and moderate-income neigh­borhoods.