Chemical Bank completed its "merger of equals" with TCF Bank on Thursday, assuming the TCF brand in becoming the largest Michigan-based bank — one that's got its eyes open for the next acquisition and is aiming to go head-to-head with national banks for commercial banking business in metro Detroit.

"We want to be acquisition-ready," David Provost, the new executive vice chairman of TCF Financial Corp., said in an exclusive interview with Crain's.

But first TCF will be focused on integrating two Midwestern banks with about 500 branches across nine states and building up the TCF brand under a marketing campaign that, in Detroit, is expected to center on the renaming of Cobo Center as TCF Center and building a new downtown Detroit headquarters tower on Woodward Avenue.

The new Detroit-based TCF Bank, which has $47 billion in assets and $35 billion in deposits, becomes the 27th-largest bank in the country following Thursday's financial close of the $3.6 billion all-stock deal.

There will be little consolidation of public-facing operations because Michigan-based Chemical Bank and Minnesota-based TCF Bank have "very little overlap" in retail branches and commercial lending and leasing operations, said Craig Dahl, president and CEO of TCF Bank.

"We have virtually no overlap in commercial customers," Dahl said. "So we're not going to have to 'pick a team to survive.' All of our team are expected to survive — and that's a really exciting thing."

By joining forces, TCF Bank's new leadership team believes it will be better positioned to compete for retail and commercial banking business with larger national financial institutions.

"We're now going to be a nearly $50 billion company, which gives us a tremendous amount of power and opportunity to do more and more to serve the customers, to serve the communities and do what banks are supposed to do, which is uplift the opportunities for those customers," said Gary Torgow, the Chemical Bank chairman who becomes executive chairman of the new TCF Bank. "In the next two years, I think the public is going to see a much stronger combined franchise."

In Michigan, Chemical Bank had 6.03 percent of a $217 billion deposit market share as of June 30, 2018, making it the seventh-largest bank in the state overall based on deposits, according to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data.

At the time, TCF Bank had a 1.47 percent share of all federally insured deposits in Michigan, making it the 10th-largest bank based on deposits behind Providence, R.I.-based Citizens Bank (ninth) and Troy-based Flagstar Bank (eighth).