On the heels of its second quarterly report, West Georgia National Bank Corporation on Monday closed a merger with First Haralson Corp. to form the First National Bank of Georgia.

According to Rocky Lipham, WGNB president and chief executive officer, the closing of the transaction for the merger of the two companies marks the end of the first phase and the beginning on the second phase.

The first phase consisted of regulatory and shareholder approval. Lipham said that all the regulators signed off without any hesitation, and all the shareholders who voted from both companies approved the merger.

The next step is for WGNB Corp. and FH Corp. to integrate the two systems over the next few weeks. Lipham expects the integration to go smoothly since both companies were on the same core processing system.

“We have been in the process of choosing which systems we are going to go with in each company, “ he said. “Basically, there won’t be big changes in either one. And from a standpoint from inside the bank, there will not be a terrible amount of stress on the employee base because of both systems being identical.”

Several months earlier when the merger was announced, Lipham said the banks anticipated keeping all 250 employees they had before the merger. He stands by that promise today, saying that both companies have taken the necessary steps to keep them from having to lay off employees.

From Jan. 22, when the merger was announced, to June 29, shares of WGNB stocks fell from $28.48 (adjusted price) to $27.25 in NASDAQ trading. Three months before the announcement, shares sold for less than $27. On Monday, WGNB stocks closed at $27 per share.

The conversion of all the systems and the merging of all the files will occur July 13-15. Also those days, the bank branches will change all their signs to “First National Bank of Georgia” to be ready for Monday morning customers. The bank’s Web site will change some time in July.

Currently, WGNB has nine full-service locations in Carrollton, Bowdon, Villa Rica and Douglasville, including 14 ATM location throughout the West Georgia area. The bank will acquire two more branches, and a Newnan branch, is scheduled to open in September, according to Lipham. There will be a total of 24 ATMs.

“Our employees in both companies have been tremendous throughout this effort,” Lipham said. “They’ve put in a lot of extra effort to be sure that we don’t interrupt the customer experience or do anything that will change the way in which customers will see us.

“But you don’t want to get bigger just for the sake of getting bigger. We want to broaden it as long as we feel like we can creating convenience and opportunity for our customers, for our employees and for our shareholders.”

On June 18, WGNB Corp. announced a second quarter cash dividend of $0.2034 per share to shareholders as of the close of business Monday. That dividend amount represents a 3.4 percent increase over the cash dividend paid in the first quarter, $0.1967, and a 15.1 percent increase over the cash dividend paid in the second quarter of 2006.

At the close of the second quarter for 2007, the corporation will also hold approximately $825 million in total assets- a 26 percent increase from the previous quarter’s $608 million.

“It has been a part of our strategy to continue to grow the banks profitably, so that we can be sure that we have the dollars to put towards the employees, the technology and back into the community,” Lipham said. “When you look back long-term, goals were set out for us to continue to grow our footprint, and through the last 20 to 30 years, that’s what we’ve done. And I think for the next 20 to 30 years, that’s what we would like to continue to do.”