Are Capital Corp. of the West's days as an independent company numbered?

Centrue Financial Corp. decided to make St. Louis its new home because its old one did not offer the same opportunity for growth.

TransCommunity Financial Corp. in Glen Allen, Va., said Monday that three shareholder groups that had previously objected to its agreement to sell itself to a "blank check" company in Alexandria have given the deal their blessing.

For Jeff Smith, the potential nightmare of identity theft hit home when his wife received a call in December from the couple's credit card company asking if she had made a $250 purchase at a Jack-in-the-Box in Ontario, Calif.

A South Dakota law that is scheduled to take effect July 1 could pave the way for state-chartered banks to start building more branches.

Liberty Financial Services Inc. of Sioux City, Iowa, plans to acquire Valley Bank, an Elk Point, S.D., unit of Haugo Bancshares Inc. of Sioux Falls.

Surety Bank in Fort Worth, which has been riddled with troubles in recent years, has a definitive agreement to sell itself to First Graham Bancorp Inc. for about $8.7 million, or $3 million above equity.

Click here to see the top 150 community banks with the largest consumer and industrial loan portfolios.

BankAtlantic Bancorp Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said Monday that it would use the proceeds from its sale of Stifel Financial Corp. stock to establish a subsidiary that would house and acquire the parent's nonaccruing loans.

TierOne Corp. of Lincoln, Neb., announced late Thursday that its board has terminated its planned sale to CapitalSource Inc., a Chevy Chase, Md., real estate investment trust.

Another group of wealthy Texans is buying up community banks.

Leesport Financial Corp. of Wyomissing, Pa., has changed its name to Vist Financial Corp. and said all its divisions will operate under that name.

First Financial Corp. of Elizabethtown, Ky., plans to acquire FSB Bancshares Inc. in Lanesville, Ind., for $14 million in cash.

Greater Community Bancorp's deal to sell itself to Oritani Financial Corp. had left investors in both companies so dissatisfied that executives feared it might fail to win shareholder approval.

Past generations have seen all this before. That is why for nearly three decades the Independent Community Bankers of America has warned that our financial system was becoming dangerously over-concentrated and that there would be ruinous consequences.

Capital Corp. of the West of Merced, Calif., is looking for a new chief executive officer and has hired an investment bank to help it evaluate its strategic options.

MIDDLE ATLANTIC

With southwest Florida's battered real estate market not expected to recover until at least 2009, TIB Financial Corp. in Naples has picked a good time to expand into the wealth management business.

Shares of Capital Corp. of the West lost more than half their value Wednesday after the Merced, Calif., company warned that it expects to report a fourth-quarter loss of $15 million and that it would miss a deadline for filing the results because of "material weaknesses" found in its lending and accounting functions.