First Financial acquiring FirstRock of Illinois.

Bolstering its Illinois presence, Wisconsin-based First Financial Corp. agreed to buy FirstRock Bancorp in a stock swap transaction valued at roughly $72 million.

First Financial, a $5 billionasset thrift, said Wednesday it would exchange roughly 1.8 of its shares for each share of FirstRock, a $408 million-asset thrift based in Rockford. At $27.10 a share, the price equals 133% of book value or 14 times analysts' consensus earnings forecast for fiscal 1995, as published by First Call Corp.

Thomas H. Neuschaefer, chief financial officer of First Financial, said the thrift will gain a $1 billion mortgage servicing portfolio as pan of the deal. He said the merged entity will have about half its assets and branches in Illinois, with operations in most major population centers outside of Chicago.

Michael Milunovich, a banking analyst with Robert W. Baird & Co., said the Illinois expansion would enhance First Financial's own salability, noting that the healthy thrift is bulking up in a market attracting numerous large and welt-heeled acquirers.

First Financial said it will book a $4 million after-tax charge as part of the deal, slated for completion in the first quarter of 1995. The thrift said the deal at worst will have a neutral impact on earnings per share beginning in 1995's second quarter. It did not offer estimates of expense reductions.

FirstRock's third quarter earnings rose 7.3% to $1.2 million, for annualized returns of 1.25% on average assets and 10.22% on average equity. First Financial's earnings rose 21% to $13.7 million, for annualized returns of 1.09% on assets and 20.91% on equity, in the same period.

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