Mercantile's pending acquisition of Eastern Michigan is approved by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago; the National Community Reinvestment Coalition and Rise Economy announce a $2.5 billion addendum to Columbia Bank's community benefits agreement following its acquisition of Pacific Premier Bank; the Federal Reserve Board and CFPB raise the thresholds for certain credit and lease transactions; and more in this week's banking news roundup.

The Dallas bank turned down another offer because it thought it could get a higher price from Fifth Third, and also could ink an agreement faster, according to Comerica's latest regulatory filing.

The merger with Heritage Financial joins two commercially focused banks, creating a $21.7 billion-asset institution with a presence in all of the Golden State's major markets.

Daryl Byrd, who led Iberiabank until it was acquired by First Horizon, has assembled an investor group to acquire MC Bancshares and its subsidiary, MC Bank & Trust Co. in Morgan City, Louisiana. Byrd will become CEO.

The regulator signed off on the transaction just two months after the banks applied to merge.

HoldCo Asset Management says that shareholders should reject Fifth Third's proposed acquisition of Comerica during a Jan. 6 vote due to what it calls an "unacceptable" negotiation process and the possible upside from another deal.

Enova International, a nonbank lender in Chicago, plans to gain scale by taking over Grasshopper Bank's national bank charter. The deal already faces skepticism from critics of Enova's high-cost lending model.

The largest bank deal to be announced in 2025 is still on track to close in the first quarter of next year, Fifth Third CEO Tim Spence said. His comments came amid opposition to various aspects of the deal, as well as how it came together and the timeline for closing the transaction.

KeyCorp CEO Chris Gorman said Tuesday that the bank has doubled its buyback plans for the fourth quarter and laid out a new long-term profitability target. The comments came a few days after HoldCo Asset Management issued a scathing report about the bank's performance.

The all-stock acquisition of Mountain Commerce Bancorp in Knoxville marks the Arkansas-based company's first M&A foray since 2022.

Royal Bank of Canada now expects to achieve an annual return on equity of at least 17% by 2027, executives said Wednesday, up one percentage point from the bank's earlier goal.

South Plains Financial agreed to pay $105.1 million in stock to acquire a seven-year-old Houston community bank in its first M&A foray since 2019.

Financial institutions see an opportunity to nab scale after years of tepid dealmaking, but investors are pushing back against such efforts out of concerns about shareholder value.

The Wisconsin-based regional bank plans to acquire American National Corp. in an all-stock transaction valued at $604 million. It is Associated's first acquisition announcement since Andy Harmening became CEO in 2021.

The two regional banks, which are combining in a merger of equals, had previously said they expected to complete the deal sometime in the first quarter of 2026.

The activist investor HoldCo Asset Management alleges that Comerica and Fifth Third used a "flawed" process to arrive at a $10.9 billion merger agreement. On Tuesday, a Delaware judge said she will hold a hearing to determine if the banks omitted material information in their public disclosures.

Lancaster, Pennsylvania-based Fulton Financial said Monday it will pay $243 million in stock for Blue Foundry Bancorp, which has lost more than $20 million since converting to a public company in 2021.

Eight months after Green Dot embarked on a review of its strategic alternatives, the fintech said it will sell its banking operations to CommerceOne Financial and sell its fintech platform to Smith Ventures. Both buyers are linked to Alabama businessman Bill Smith.

HoldCo Asset Management alleged in a court filing that Comerica's directors and Chairman and CEO Curt Farmer breached their fiduciary duties to investors, in part because negotiations for the bank's sale to Fifth Third took just 17 days.

The Federal Reserve played a behind-the-scenes role in facilitating the sale of PacWest Bancorp, providing an enticement to private-equity interests to make a deal happen, according to agency records and recent comments by a prominent banking lawyer.