Frontier Bank grows with merger

Herald staff

EVERETT — The parent company of Frontier Bank is acquiring a small King County bank holding company.

Frontier Financial Corp. announced this week that it would take over Interbancorp Inc. in a stock swap valued at about $11 million. The deal is expected to close in early 2001.

Interbancorp is based in Duvall. It operates Valley Community Bank of Duvall and Kirkland Bank of Commerce. It recently received regulatory approval to open a third office at Totem Lake.

The deal still must be approved by regulators.

Bob Dickson, Frontier’s president and chief executive officer, said it will "enable us to better serve Duvall/Kirkland-area customers through a larger loan capacity and expanded menu of products."

He said Interbancorp’s staff will stay in place.

Current Interbancorp CEO Herb Mueller, however, will retire at the end of this month. Interbancorp president Russ Anderson will become a senior vice president with Frontier.

This is the third merger for Frontier in the past two years. When completed, the bank will have 36 offices in eight Western Washington counties and total assets of more than $1.7 billion.