A Sioux Falls-based bank has one year to change its name and complete a full rebrand after a $60 million cash deal with Facebook's parent company.
The former Facebook Inc. recently changed its name to Meta Platforms. The company owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and other social media and technology brands.
Meanwhile, Sioux Falls is home to Meta Financial Group and its subsidiary MetaBank, which has branches in South Dakota and Iowa. MetaBank was also responsible for issuing debit cards to Americans across the country as part of a COVID aid package.
These similar names might be a problem for the massive and powerful Meta Platforms.
So Meta Platform made an offer to Meta Financial Group: Give us your naming, trademark, web domain and social media rights, and we'll give you $60 million in cash.
Meta Financial Group agreed.
We "agreed to phase out and cease all use of the META marks and names, and change its corporate names to names that do not include 'Meta,'" the company wrote in a recent SEC filing. Meta Financial Group has one year to change its names and brands.
The filing says the agreement is between Meta Financial Group and an entity called Beige Key LLC. Reuters reported that Beige Key is linked to Facebook.
"I can confirm Beige Key is affiliated with us (a subsidiary holding company of ours) and we’ve acquired these trademark assets to align with our recent company name change to Meta back in October," Meta Platforms said in an email to SDPB.
Meta Financial Group will use some of its $60 million to cover the costs of the rebrand, the filing says. The remainder of the funds will go toward "general corporate purposes, including tax-efficient capital allocation."
The company declined to discuss why it accepted the deal and how the millions of dollars and rebrand might impact the company, investors and clients.
