Plaza Mortgage Price Dips Slightly for Sale to Fleet

Plaza Home Mortgage Corp. said Friday that its merger into Fleet National Bank should be completed March 3 and that the price should be about $87.3 million, a slight reduction from the anticipated price.

Under the merger agreement with the bank in Providence, R.I., the Santa Ana-based savings and loan on Friday completed selling certain loans and other assets. Those sales prompted the purchase price to drop to $7.525 a share from $7.625 a share. Plaza previously had expected the price to fall only a nickel a share.

The final price will be set at closing under a formula that includes Plaza’s last stock price.

Plaza and Fleet already have obtained approvals from banking and thrift regulators and await only the approval Tuesday of Plaza’s shareholders. Plaza is among the nation’s 30 largest providers of home mortgages, and the acquisition will help Fleet’s parent company, Fleet Financial Group Inc., maintain its position as the nation’s second largest.

Fleet Financial, meantime, said earlier this week that it has agreed to a merger with Shawmut National Corp. for $3.7 billion in stock. It would relocate its headquarters to Shawmut’s in Boston, where Fleet would operate the nation’s ninth largest banking company.