Oregon's biggest bank, Umpqua Holdings Corp. (UMPQ), was reportedly nearing its acquisition of Sterling Financial Corp. According to sources who told Bloomberg, the acquisition of the Warburg Pincus LLC and Thomas H. Lee Partners LP-backed lender would be bought at about USD1.8 billion. 

Umpqua's buying of Sterling would have the bank doubling its sizein terms of assets. According to data compiled by the same news agency, the Portland-based bank would have over USD20 billion in assets with market reach of around 400 branches. 

RBC Capital Markets analyst Joseph Morford however, recommended that the bank close some of Sterling's branches to save money. "Given some of the overlap, we suspect it should be very accretive to earnings," he added. Morford covers Umpqua and predicted that the bank's stok would perform in the banking sector.

Pincus and Lee, whose companies backed Sterling, and Sterling did not provide any comment on the matter. An Umpqua representative had not replied to Bloomberg's request for comment.