With its agreement to acquire BBVA USA Bancshares Inc., PNC will have a coast-to-coast presence with its banking franchises should the deal meet regulatory approval.

PNC Financial Services Inc. announced Monday that the boards of directors of both it and the Spanish financial group Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria S.A. agree to purchase the latter's U.S. operations, including the bank BBVA USA, for $11.6 billion in cash on hand. If the deal, which is expected to conclude in mid-2021, meets customary closing requirements, PNC would acquire more than 630 branches it plans to absorb under the PNC name.

“Our acquisition of BBVA USA will accelerate our growth trajectory and drive long-term shareholder value through a strategic deployment of the proceeds from the sale of our BlackRock investment,” William S. Demchak, PNC chairman, president and CEO, said in a news release Monday. “This transaction is an opportunity to navigate our future from a position of strength, accelerating PNC's national expansion strategy while drawing on our experience as a disciplined acquirer. We are excited to bring our industry-leading technology and innovative products and services to new markets and clients, leveraging our mutual commitment to building diverse and high performing teams and supporting the communities we serve.”

At present, the farthest west PNC's branches reach are in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, area. BBVA's branches extend as far west as California, and include other locations in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas. That would give the Pittsburgh-based banking group a true coast-to-coast presence,

“Starting with the (Royal Bank of Canada) acquisition that established our presence in the southeast, we've been consistently focused on expanding into new markets with the ultimate strategic objective of building a national franchise, one that will leverage our industry-leading technology, digital capabilities, high-quality products and services and, importantly, our Main Street relationship-based model,” Demchak said in a Monday conference call.

While much of the bank's expansion recently has been “organic,” Demchak during the conference call posed the BBVA acquisition as a way to “supercharge” PNC's progress on meeting that national franchise goal.

PNC also posed this transaction as being similar to its purchase of the much larger National City Bank during the fallout of the 2007-08 recession, when it more than doubled its branch footprint, assets and loans.

This purchase would increase those data points by roughly 25%, given BBVA's $86.4 billion in deposits and $66.4 billion in loans. Comparatively, PNC holds $355 billion in deposits and $249 billion in loans.

The company also, in a presentation with shareholders, noted it would become the fifth-largest bank in the United States by assets, loans, deposits and branches.

PNC shares also rose Monday after the announcement of the acquisition. After closing at $122.78 per share Friday evening, it closed 2.86% higher Monday evening at $126.29 per share, beating out the S&P 500 index by 1.7 percentage points.