Fifth Third’s acquisition brings new verticals to Jacksonville (Courtesy of the Jacksonville Business Journal) — Fifth Third Bank won’t be completely integrated with Comerica Inc. until later this year but to Jacksonville City President Ryan Ayres, the merger has brought the muscle needed for when they go to bat.
The acquisition — valued at $10.9 billion — brought two bankers onto the team, driving Fifth Third into three new corporate verticals: life science, environmental and dealer finance, Ayres told the Business Journal.
Put together with Fifth Third’s commercial payments and capital markets business, he said, those additions help the newly combined bank be a middle market leader on a national scale.
“If you think about our deposit basis as an entire institution, 62% of it will be recurring fee income,” said Ayres. “It reshapes that structure a little bit more and allows us to kind of be more aggressive in the marketplace, help grow the business and compete even more aggressively with the top three, four banks in the nation.”
Headquartered from Cincinnati, Fifth Third (NASDAQ: FITB) has spent years investing heavily in its Florida presence. As of December, the bank operated 200 financial centers across the state. Of that, 97 are in North Florida, employing nearly 700 people.
By 2028, Fifth Third aims to have as many branches in Florida as it does in its home state of Ohio, former City President Brian Evans told the Business Journal in July. According to the latest FDIC data, the bank has 245 branches in Ohio.
Now past its merger with Comerica, the combined organization has become the U.S.’s ninth largest bank with approximately $288 billion in assets.
“The bank has made a huge investment in Florida,” Ayres said last month. “With the acquisition of Comerica, it just gives us some more firepower across the nation as well.”
The merger gives Fifth Third a stronger national middle-market presence and significantly expands its capabilities in commercial payments and wealth management — both high-demand services among Jacksonville’s expanding business base.
“Over the years, our bank has been a very flat organization from a decision making process, and we’ve been able to deliver quickly on the needs of our clients,” Ayres said. “I think our messaging is just going to be that that’ll continue — we’re just going to be able to have a little bit more muscle to bring to the table when we need it.”
Fifth Third’s merger with Comerica is the second deal of its kind to close in 2026, with local impacts. Pinnacle Financial Partners closed its merger with Synovus Financial, an $8.6 billion deal fueling local leadership’s growth plans on the First Coast.