Plaza Bank in Irvine announced Wednesday that it had reached an agreement to acquire El Segundo lender Bank of Manhattan, marking the L.A. area’s first bank merger announced this year.

Manhattan shareholders will have the right to receive either $5.59 in cash or 1.2 shares of Plaza stock in exchange for each Manhattan share. The cash consideration will apply to up to 3.8 million Manhattan shares. The deal values Bank of Manhattan at about $52 million.

“This combination will create a premier community business and private bank in California and Nevada with deeper capabilities that will enable us to better serve our customers across all of our markets,” said Plaza Bank Chief Executive Gene Galloway, who will lead the combined bank, which will have assets of about $1 billion on a pro forma basis.

On its own, Plaza has assets of $525 million and two branches, one in Irvine and one in Las Vegas. Bank of Manhattan has assets of $496 million has six branches, all of them in Los Angeles County. Bank of Manhattan is controlled by Carpenter & Co., a bank-focused private equity firm in Irvine.

There has been a flurry of bank mergers in recent years, as increased regulatory costs have made it difficult for smaller banks to keep pace. Bank of Manhattan, the 30th largest bank in the Los Angeles area according to the Business Journal’s most recent list, becomes the latest bank of that size to pair up.