NEW ENGLAND

Joseph T. Moss Jr. has resigned as president and chief operating officer of Appalachian Bancshares Inc. in Ellijay, Ga.

Wilmington Trust Corp. is looking to broaden its commercial banking network in the mid-Atlantic region, but its chairman and chief executive, Ted Cecala, said that it would do so organically, not through acquisitions.

Scottsdale, Ariz., is home to some of the nation's wealthiest families and individuals, and community banks there are trying to outdo one another to win those customers.

Joining a growing list of community banks, First Ipswich Bancorp in Ipswich, Mass., said Tuesday that it plans to go private so that it can reduce regulatory expenses and improve profitability.

For Patti Bliss, a senior vice president at Frost National Bank in San Antonio, providing services for the deaf is personal.

One of the fundamental questions in valuing a business is whether the whole is worth more than the sum of its parts.

Farmers and Merchants Bancorp of Archbold, Ohio, has a deal to buy Knisely Financial Corp.'s $46 million-asset Knisely Bank, in Butler, Ind.

First Place Financial Corp. of Warren, Ohio has a deal to buy Hicksville Building and Loan Savings Bank, a small mutual savings bank near the Indiana border.

National Penn Bancshares of Boyertown, Pa., struck its largest deal ever Friday, when it said it would buy the $2.9 billion-asset KNBT Bancorp in Bethlehem for $464.6 million in stock.

Watertown Savings Bank's deal to buy a smaller competitor in its upstate New York hometown would be the first acquisition in its 114-year-history.

JLL Partners Fund FCH LP, a New York private-equity firm, has agreed to invest up to $150 million in FC Holdings Inc. of Houston, which said it would use the money to fund acquisitions and expand its subsidiary banks.

Two banks in organization plan to target business customers that many banks would not touch with a 10-foot pole: check cashers and other money-services businesses.

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Cowlitz Bancorp of Longview, Wash., said its board unanimously rejected an unsolicited offer from the Bellevue private-equity firm Crescent Capital VI LLC to buy the company.

Nara Bancorp of Los Angeles said Thursday that it had made a deal to buy a branch in Brick Township, N.J., from a New Jersey bank.

An Alexandria, Va., company formed last year to buy community banks says it has struck its first deal.

At most banks relationship managers receive a salary and commission for bringing in loans and deposits and are not penalized when customers take their business elsewhere.

NEW ENGLAND