Commercial banking

The big China deals that lined rainmakers' pockets for decades have evaporated. Banks and law firms alike are cutting jobs. Those advisers that remain are chasing smaller deals and taking extended vacations.

The Champaign, Illinois-based company said it would pay $41.6 million to acquire Merchants and Manufacturers Bank Corp., which has five branches in the Greater Chicago area.

Purchases by banks, airlines, industrial heavyweights and other businesses fell for the first time last year, according to Bloomberg Green's analysis of data in three public registries covering more than 260,000 transactions since 2010. Yet corporate buyers increased purchases of offsets derived from a particularly controversial source — wind, hydro and solar projects.

Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group's Chief Executive Officer Jun Ohta, who pursued an aggressive expansion abroad during his four years at the helm of Japan's second-largest bank, has died. He was 65. 

Wells Fargo makes a $1.5 million investment in Black entrepreneurship; America Express promotes small businesses through augmented reality; shareholders approve the Banc of California-PacWest merger; and more in the weekly banking news roundup.

Dream Chasers upped its bid for Carver, one of the nation's largest and highest-profile Black banks, by a quarter, to $3.25 per share, dismissing the growth strategy interim CEO Craig MacKay outlined in a recent shareholder letter.

There's a reason why successful bankers with long careers look back on their time spent as vice presidents as among the best of their working years.

Amid a deal drought that has dragged on for more than a year, Wells Fargo is cutting 40 to 50 jobs in its corporate and investment bank division, say people with knowledge of the decision.  

Banks across the spectrum of size and location serve small businesses — but they all do it differently. At American Banker's Small Biz Banking 2023 conference in Nashville from November 13-15, banks of all sizes will come together to share ideas, learn from experts and hear from bankers in the field who are doing it best. 

Both loans and deposit balances have stabilized since the North Carolina bank acquired parts of the failed Silicon Valley Bank, paving the way for better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings guidance. The only blemish in the third quarter, one analyst said, was credit quality.