Add ASB Financial Corp. in Portsmouth, Ohio, to the list of small, publicly traded banking companies deciding to go private to escape Securities and Exchange Commission reporting requirements.

Gerard M. Banmiller generally scorns what he calls "relentlessly positive" ads that breathlessly hype convenience or service.

Independent Bank Group Central Texas Inc. of Waco is acquiring the $28 million-asset First FSB Bancshares Inc. of Mount Calm and its two subsidiary banks.

Capitol Bancorp Inc. of Lansing, Mich., said this week that it plans to open a bank in Fort Collins, Colo., in midyear.

A custodian for individual retirement accounts has been making the rounds of investor meetings of would-be banks, and persuading many attendees to invest in the start-ups through their IRAs.

SOUTHEAST

Pacific Capital Bancorp in Santa Barbara, Calif., is buying First Bancshares Inc. in San Luis Obispo for $60.8 million in cash.

My Jan. 5 column on how banks can work with schools and colleges drew some useful suggestions from bankers.

Because its previous strategy of lending to insurance agencies around the country produced nothing but losses, a small Indiana thrift is taking a different tack.

Exchange National Bancshares Inc. of Jefferson City, Mo., is buying the $171 million-asset Bank 10 in Belton for $32 million.

First Merit Corp. of Akron said Tuesday that it had revised its fourth-quarter and full-year earnings to reflect a $3.8 million impairment charge on $25 million of preferred stock in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Paul Tobias met James C. Bess last spring and says he was so impressed with what the executive had done to fix the troubled North Country Bank in Manistique, Mich., that he decided to buy it.

Hudson City Bancorp of Paramus, N.J., expects to raise $3.5 billion to $4.7 billion in its second-step conversion to a 100% stock-traded company.

Small community banks are going private at an increasingly rapid rate, and most cite regulatory compliance costs as the primary factor behind the trend.

The National Credit Union Administration is asking Congress to approve new capital requirements for credit unions.

Greene County Bancshares Inc. was an also-ran in Tennessee when it opened its first metropolitan branch in Knoxville 14 months ago, with modest growth plans that called for adding a couple of branches a year.