Joining a growing list of community banks, First Ipswich Bancorp in Ipswich, Mass., said Tuesday that it plans to go private so that it can reduce regulatory expenses and improve profitability.

For Patti Bliss, a senior vice president at Frost National Bank in San Antonio, providing services for the deaf is personal.

One of the fundamental questions in valuing a business is whether the whole is worth more than the sum of its parts.

Farmers and Merchants Bancorp of Archbold, Ohio, has a deal to buy Knisely Financial Corp.'s $46 million-asset Knisely Bank, in Butler, Ind.

First Place Financial Corp. of Warren, Ohio has a deal to buy Hicksville Building and Loan Savings Bank, a small mutual savings bank near the Indiana border.

National Penn Bancshares of Boyertown, Pa., struck its largest deal ever Friday, when it said it would buy the $2.9 billion-asset KNBT Bancorp in Bethlehem for $464.6 million in stock.

Watertown Savings Bank's deal to buy a smaller competitor in its upstate New York hometown would be the first acquisition in its 114-year-history.

JLL Partners Fund FCH LP, a New York private-equity firm, has agreed to invest up to $150 million in FC Holdings Inc. of Houston, which said it would use the money to fund acquisitions and expand its subsidiary banks.

Two banks in organization plan to target business customers that many banks would not touch with a 10-foot pole: check cashers and other money-services businesses.

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Cowlitz Bancorp of Longview, Wash., said its board unanimously rejected an unsolicited offer from the Bellevue private-equity firm Crescent Capital VI LLC to buy the company.

Nara Bancorp of Los Angeles said Thursday that it had made a deal to buy a branch in Brick Township, N.J., from a New Jersey bank.

An Alexandria, Va., company formed last year to buy community banks says it has struck its first deal.

At most banks relationship managers receive a salary and commission for bringing in loans and deposits and are not penalized when customers take their business elsewhere.

NEW ENGLAND

Ameriana Bancorp in New Castle, Ind., has resolved a long-running legal battle related to a pool of leases it acquired that turned out to be fraudulent.

Seacoast Banking Corp. of Florida's earnings, stock price, and credit quality have suffered during a statewide housing slump, but Dennis S. Hudson 3rd, its chairman and chief executive, says he is not rattled.

First Federal Bankshares Inc. of Sioux City, Iowa, has renamed its First Federal Bank subsidiary Vantus Bank.

Until a few weeks ago St. Martin Bank and Trust in St. Martinville, La., expected to use trust-preferred securities to finance its most recent buyout deal.