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GREENSBORO — NewBridge Bancorp is an unfamiliar name for two companies that local customers have known for decades.

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FNB Financial Services and LSB Bancshares announced their merger last February and are expected to close the deal formally next week, forming a new entity they've named NewBridge.

LSB, or Lexington State Bank, was founded in 1949 in Lexington and opened its first Guilford County branch

in High Point in 2001. Reidsville's FNB was founded nearly a century ago and moved its headquarters to Greensboro in 2003.

NewBridge is now a

$2 billion regional bank whose headquarters will remain in Greensboro off New Garden Road.

City leaders have wanted a major bank headquarters here for years, and NewBridge will rank among the state's top 10 with 650 employees.

The bank will unveil its new signs today to the public for the first time at FNB Financial Services headquarters on Highwoods Boulevard.

Contact Richard M. Barron at 373-7371 or dbarron@news-record.com