Bank of the Ozarks is one step closer to a $402.5-million deal to acquire a bank founded in Bradenton in 1995. Shareholders for C1 Bank voted in favor of the deal at a special meeting on Thursday. More than 99.7 percent of votes cast, representing 83.5 percent of outstanding shares of C1 common stock, were in favor of the merger. “The approval of C1 shareholders was one of the steps necessary to merge,” said Susan Blair, executive vice president for Bank of the Ozarks.

A plan to merge the banks was first announced in November, when Bank of the Ozarks announced the plan to acquire C1 Financial and its subsidiary C1 Bank in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $402.5 million, roughly $25 per share of C1. Upon the closing of the transaction, C1 CEO Trevor Burgess will become chief innovation officer at Bank of the Ozarks and president of Florida operations, and is expected to be nominated to serve on the Ozarks board of directors.”“We are excited to have found a new partner in Bank of the Ozarks, which shares our passions for the entrepreneur, for first class service, and for making a fundamental difference in our communities,” Burgess said in a statement. “Together, with an expanded product set and increased firepower, we will be able to serve an even broader array of businesses and families in the state of Florida.”

C1 was founded in Bradenton in 1995 as Community Bank of Manatee by William Sedgeman, Jr., now chairman of the board. In 2012, the headquarters moves to St. Petersburg and the name changed to C1. The company C1 Financial was incorporated in 2013, and that same year, CBM Florida Holding Company merged with C1. The bank today has 32 locations in Florida.

Bank of the Ozarks, based in Arkansas, has been aggressively acquiring banks since 2010, and this acquisition will be the 15th since the start of the decade. The bank entered the Florida market in 2010 after the failure of Bradenton-based Horizon Bank in 2010. When the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation closed Horizon, the agency entered into an agreement with Bank of the Ozarks to assume all of the failed bank’s deposits and to reopen Horizon Bank’s four branches as Bank of the Ozarks branches. In 2014, Bank of the Ozarks in 2014 similarly took over The Park Avenue Bank, a Georgia-based bank with one branch in Florida, in another FDIC-assisted acquisition. In 2015, Bank of the Ozarks acquired the Clearwater-based Intervest Bancshares Corporation.

Bank officials say the deal is expected to be finalized late in the first quarter of 2016 or early in the second quarter.