Northfield Bancorp Inc. in Avenel, N.J., has agreed to buy Flatbush Federal Bancorp Inc. in Brooklyn, N.Y., in a deal that will combine two mutual holding companies.

Wintrust Financial Corp. in Lake Forest, Ill., will raise up to $126.5 million in capital through a preferred stock offering.

BB&T shouldered more risk when it agreed to make its already complex deal for BankAtlantic more complicated. But the risk is manageable -- and worth it, experts say.

Mistakes happen when increasing business demands drive decisions that exceed what bank core systems can do. Unfortunately, those demands keep coming.

Great Western Bancorp. Inc. of Watertown, S.D., has agreed to buy North Central Bancshares Inc. in Fort Dodge, Iowa, for $41.5 million.

Lone Star Funds has agreed to buy $1 billion in commercial loans from CIT Group, the small business lender run by John Thain after emerging from bankruptcy in December 2009, according to a person with knowledge of the sale.

BB&T said Tuesday that it would pay off holders of BankAtlantic's trust-preferred securities and take an interest in additional assets to rescue the stalled deal.

Customers of the failed securities firm MF Global, who have been awaiting the fate of $1.6 billion in missing funds, have received an offer for their funds from Barclays Capital that would make them nearly whole.

In what would be its largest acquisition in more 15 years, UnionBanCal Corp. in San Francisco is buying Pacific Capital Corp. in Santa Barbara, Calif., for about $1.5 billion in cash.

HSBC Holdings PLC is planning to sell or close retail operations in seven Asian countries that it has decided not to focus investment on, the Financial Times reported Monday citing the bank's chief executive in Asia Peter Wong.

A breakdown of M&A announcements for the last week

The list of potential bank buyers is growing at a faster rate than the ranks of sellers, according to a new research note by KBW Inc.'s Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc.

Private equity fixed Pacific Capital and has agreed to sell it to UnionBanCal for a healthy price in a slow M&A market. There could have been more deals like this had regulators embraced PE.

Two small Kansas banks that have been discussing a merger for much of the past year have finally pulled the trigger on a deal.

Already an active lender to franchisees of fast-food restaurants, City National Corp. in Los Angeles is opening a loan office in Seattle as part of its strategy to broaden the scope of its restaurant financing.

Fox Chase Bancorp Inc. in Hatboro, Pa., said the planned sale of a pool of problem consumer loans has fallen through and that, as a result, its total nonperforming assets were higher in the fourth quarter than it initially reported.

UnionBanCal is taking the unusual step of marking up the value of Pacific Capital's loan portfolio as part of its $1.5 billion deal for the Santa Barbara, Calif., lender.

Union Bank of California is buying bank holding company Pacific Capital, in one of the largest bank deals in years.

In what would be its largest acquisition in more 15 years, UnionBanCal Corp. in San Francisco is buying Pacific Capital Corp. in Santa Barbara, Calif., for about $1.5 billion in cash.

For a second time in three weeks, regulators have shuttered a bank that others were unwilling to acquire.