Tacoma, Wash.-based Columbia Banking System Inc. sees its latest deal as an opportunity to expand into a new state, through both accelerated organic growth and additional merger activity.

Columbia announced it will purchase Sacramento, Calif.-based Bank of Commerce Holdings in a deal that will move the bank into northern California.

Executives said on the call that the new acquisition will provide opportunity for organic growth through Small Business Administration lending, national healthcare lending, wealth management and other areas.

The deal also provides opportunities for the bank to expand further into the area through acquisitions.

"As we look at our bandwidth and our capacity to evaluate other opportunities, we still have that," said Columbia CEO Clint Stein on the call.

The deal leaves a small gap between Columbia's Oregon branches and Bank of Commerce's California branches, which management said it will try to fill. In addition, the bank will continue to grow in markets Stein described as "complementary and adjacent."

The bank is not focused solely on California for expansion, Stein said, and may look to expand east or into the Rocky Mountain states.

"The thing we don't want to do is create an outpost for a sense of a fractured footprint," said Stein. "That's not saying that there wouldn't be a way to do something that is maybe a self-contained unit that would be additive to shareholder value."