Jim Dobbs

Even as lockdowns ease, the trend toward remote work poses challenges for building owners and the banks that lend to them.

The buyer is acquiring Westchester Bank Holding Corp. in White Plains, New York, for $220 million. While a relatively small deal for Valley, it fills a geographic gap in its metro New York footprint.

The $124 million buyout would give Farmers nearly $800 million of additional assets and deepen its presence in northeast Ohio.

The bank's holding company, CRB Group, has acquired PeerIQ, an online lending marketplace data provider backed by the former CEOs of Morgan Stanley and Citigroup. It's said it wants more deals like this one.

In the past five years combined only 14 banks failed to meet the minimum market capitalization for inclusion in the index. In this year's rebalancing, 82 are being removed and some may have to consider strategic options to appease investors.

Chief operating officer Sam Sidhu takes over as president and chief executive on July 1. He has a list of 25 potential markets the Pennsylvania bank might enter, and has already begun hiring commercial bankers in Texas, Florida and Illinois.

The $23.3 billion-asset Simmons would make big market-share gains in Memphis and Nashville with its deals for Triumph Bancshares and Landmark Community Bank.

Even though industry economists and Federal Reserve officials expect the recent price surge to wane, some big-bank executives are expressing concern about the risk of an inflationary spiral hindering the recovery from the pandemic recession.

Rising inflation could lead to a rate hike, bolstering lenders' profits in 2022. Improved credit quality and an economic rebound are also fueling investment in the sector.

The Indiana company is buying 14 branches that Huntington Bancshares is divesting as a condition of its deal to buy TCF Financial.

With rock-bottom rates suppressing interest income, some buyers are looking beyond traditional M&A and striking deals for asset managers, insurance firms and other businesses that generate the bulk of their revenue from fees.

The target is among the top-performing banks in Utah and the only bank in a five-state region with assets between $3 billion and $10 billion.

Share buyback programs, shelved by many banks last year amid pressure from regulators to preserve capital, are back in vogue, with three dozen banks announcing such plans in April alone.

The best-performing banks' revenue rose at nearly twice the rate of expenses thanks to mortgage refinancing and the Paycheck Protection Program.

FinTrust Capital Partners in South Carolina has $2 billion of assets under management.

Applications for small business and commercial real estate loans are rising, creating some optimism among lenders — and more temptation to loosen standards to land those borrowers.

Lenders including Howard Bancorp and First Carolina Bank are shunning acquisitions as a route into new markets, to avoid overpaying for targets and inheriting potential loan problems.

The company had delayed a vote set for late April to give it more time to collect the legally required support from two-thirds of its outstanding shares.

The company, which has faced opposition from a big investor, had to reschedule its shareholder vote after it was unable to secure the legally required two-thirds backing of outstanding shares at an April 27 meeting.

Kerry Killinger, former CEO of Washington Mutual, says the asset bubbles and increased consumer debt that contributed to his company's failure are reappearing.