TowneBank sells resort property management segment for $250M

Suffolk-based TowneBank has sold its resort property management division for $250 million to Belcrest Vacations Acquisitions, a limited liability company tied to a California-based private equity group, the bank announced Monday.

TowneBank declined to identify the private equity firm, and a registered agent for the LLC also declined to disclose the buyer’s identity.

TowneBank created the resort property management division, Towne Vacations, in 2014. The division manages nearly 3,000 high-end homes, renting them out weekly to vacationers, often large groups splitting the cost of luxury properties. The business also handles maintenance, guest services and homeowner bookings. It has locations in South Carolina, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee and western Maryland.

About 340 employees work in the division and are expected to transition to the new owner. TowneBank President and CEO William I. Foster III said the bank is not aware of any planned layoffs and expects the buyer to grow the platform.

Foster said the undisclosed private equity company approached the bank in fall 2025 and pursued the acquisition over several months. TowneBank did not run a competitive sale process and had not been actively looking to sell.

“The offer was attractive to us, and so we decided to sell it, which is really unusual for us,” Foster said. “We’re not sellers of things. We like building things. We don’t like selling things, typically. But … this is probably the exception to the rule.”

While Foster did not disclose Town Vacations’ revenue, he said it was “very profitable.” He noted Town Vacations was part of TowneBank’s broader strategy of building fee-based businesses alongside traditional banking, including mortgage lending, insurance and real estate services.

But unlike those operations, the vacation rental business did not integrate closely with the bank’s core activities.

“Our bankers can’t very well refer business to our vacation property management company in Hilton Head,” Foster said. “Nor can they refer banking business to our bank, whereas all the other side businesses, I should say, fee income businesses, are really integrated in the bank very closely.”

Foster said while TowneBank would have been content to continue to build Town Vacations up, the private equity group made an offer that was “too good to turn down.”

TowneBank has not yet finalized plans for how it will use the $250 million in proceeds but expects to outline them in the coming months.

“It’s a nice problem to have,” Foster said. “But we do want to be good stewards of the funds.”

In January, TowneBank completed its $476 million acquisition of North Carolina-based Dogwood State Bank, following the 2025 purchases of Old Point National Bank of Phoebus and Village Bank.

Founded in 1999, TowneBank operates over 70 banking offices throughout Hampton Roads and Central Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, with an estimated $22 billion in assets. The company employs nearly 3,000 people.