- Key takeaway: Depositor-owned North Shore Bank will deepen its home-state footprint, acquiring 1895 Bancorp and its 130-year-old subsidiary PyraMax Bank.
- Supporting data: The Midwest has been the most active region in the country from a bank M&A standpoint, with 116 deals since the start of 2022.
- Expert quote: "This is a natural fit between two organizations that believe in community banking at its core." – North Shore CEO Jay McKenna
A depositor-owned Wisconsin thrift that converted to stock ownership after raising $57 million in a pair of public offerings has agreed to sell itself to a mutual bank.
The $598 million-asset 1895 Bancorp's sale to North Shore Bank in Brookfield, Wisconsin, comes about 16 months after 1895 hired investment bank Keefe Bruyette & Woods to help it weigh strategic options. Combining with the $2.6 billion-asset North Shore will provide customers with a higher level of service than 1895 Bancorp can provide on its own, according to CEO David Ball.
"By coming together we can offer our customers even more," Ball said Thursday in a press release.
With no shares to trade, depositor-owned banks have to pay cash to acquire banks. As such, deals involving a mutual bank acquiring a stock-traded institution are infrequent, but they're by no means unheard of. In May for example, the $7 billion-asset Cambridge Savings Bank in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
Founded in 1923 as the North Shore Building & Loan association, North Shore agreed to pay between $18.40 and $18.66 per share, or $102.5 million to $103.8 million, for 1895 Bancorp, based on an estimate of outstanding shares by OTC Markets Group.
1895, the holding company for the 130-year-old, Greenfield, Wisconsin-based PyraMax Bank, raised $21.5 million in a first-step conversion in 2019. A second-step conversion two years later raised an additional $35.5 million. Despite the influx of capital, 1895 struggled to find its footing as a publicly traded bank. Like a number of other institutions, 1895 was caught off-guard when interest rates spiked in 2022 and 2023. In 2023, it sold nearly $50 million of lower-yielding securities reporting losses totaling $4.1 million. For all of 2023, 1895 reported a loss of $5 million. Though 1895 returned to profitability in 2024, earnings were muted at $501,000.
North Shore has been consistently profitable in recent years. It reported first-quarter net income totaling $6.3 million. For all of 2026, North Shore earned $22.1 million.
1895 tapped KBW in February 2025 as part of a broader plan that included deregistering from the Securities & Exchange Commission, delisting its stock from the Nasdaq stock market and beginning trading on OTC Markets' over-the-counter OTCQX exchange.
The merger, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter, will create a combined institution with approximately $3.1 billion in assets, according to North Shore and 1895.
"This is a natural fit between two organizations that believe in community banking at its core," North Shore CEO Jay McKenna said in a press release. "It allows us to continue growing in markets we know well, while expanding into a few new communities."
1895's PyraMax subsidiary opened in 1895 as South Milwaukee Savings Bank. It adopted the PyraMax brand in 2000. 1895 operates six branches, all in Wisconsin. North Shore has 42 branches in Eastern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois.
According to Laurie Hunsicker, an analyst with Chicago-based Seaport Research Partners, there have been 42 bank mergers year-to-date, with the Midwest the most active region in the country. Since the start of 2025, Midwest banks have announced 116 M&A transactions, Hunsicker wrote Monday in a research note. The Southeast ranked as the second-most-active region during that span with 44 deals.
