The Columbus, Ohio-based bank said its all-stock bid for Penns Woods Bancorp would expand its footprint and give it $1.7 billion of deposits and $1.9 billion of loans.

Months of painful restructuring may be paying off as the Charlottesville, Virginia-based company reported a modest third-quarter profit after more than a year of losses.

The bank ends the year with a substantially different profile from early 2024, which brought new leadership, a significant reduction to its mortgage operations and a corporate rebrand.

The combination would create a Northeast regional bank with nearly $24 billion of assets. It would rank as the eighth-largest bank in the Boston metropolitan area by deposit market share.

The bank said it redeployed proceeds from the sale into high-yielding investments. It also said it would end an employee pension plan to curb expenses.

A close result was complicated by an hour-long adjournment of the New York-based company's annual meeting that angered dissident investors and left them mulling legal action.

The post-pandemic increase in consumers falling behind on their credit card bills seems to be tapering off. "For 2025, we're seeing a lot of stability in delinquencies," an industry researcher said.

Orange Bank and Trust in Middletown says it will operate as a boutique commercial bank, focusing on small business, nonprofits and the borough's sizzling housing construction market.