In Brief: Mercantile to Pay $118M For an Illinois Bank

Mercantile Bancorp. announced plans late Monday to acquire Financial Services Corporation of the Midwest, Rock Island, Ill., for about $118 million in stock.

Financial Services, with $500 million of assets, is the parent of Rock Island (Ill.) Bank. In the pooling-of-interest transaction, $31 billion- asset Mercantile has agreed to exchange about 6.857 shares of its stock for each share of Financial Services' common stock. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter.

Mercantile holds the No. 4 market share in the Quad Cities area, the largest metropolitan market between Chicago and Des Moines. By acquiring Rock Island, Mercantile would vault into the No. 2 position in the Quad Cities area of Davenport and Bettendorf in Iowa and Moline and Rock Island in Illinois.

"Mercantile is combining forces with a strong commercial lending resource, which greatly strengthens our Quad Cities franchise," William E. Stangler, Mercantile's president and chief executive officer said.

A multibank holding company, Mercantile also has deals pending to acquire CBT Corp. of Paducah, Ky., and First Bank of Illinois, Springfield. Those deals are expected to close in the second quarter.

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