Huntington Bancshares to buy FirstMerit for $3.4 billion
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The combination would create the largest bank in Ohio.
Huntington offered the equivalent of $20.14 per share for FirstMerit: 1.72 of its own shares and $5.00 in cash, a premium of 31 percent to FirstMerit's closing price on Monday on the Nasdaq.
FirstMerit Corp will merge with a unit of Huntington Bancshares; and FirstMerit Bank, a unit of FirstMerit Corp, will merge with and into The Huntington National Bank, Huntington said.
The pro-forma company is expected to have nearly $100 billion in assets and operate across an eight-state Midwestern footprint, Huntington said in a statement. The combination would create the largest bank in Ohio, based on deposit market share, it added.
Huntington will also expand operations into new markets of Chicago and Wisconsin, it said. ■