East West of Los Angeles hopes that buying MetroCorp in Houston will help its Chinese clients develop business ties in the Lone Star State.

Midsize players will seek to increase geographic coverage, acquire deposits with little-to-no premium and attract clients away from their competition through mergers and acquisitions.

MidSouth Bancorp in Lafayette, La., plans to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday. It will keep its current ticker symbol, MSL.

Westby Co-Op Credit Union in Wisconsin has agreed to buy the deposits and loans of a Walmart branch from Citizens Community Bancorp (CZWI) in Eau Claire, Wis.

East West Bancorp (EWBC) in Pasadena, Calif., has agreed to pay $273 million in stock and cash for MetroCorp Bancshares (MCBI) in Houston.

NewStar Financial, the Boston business lender backed by private-equity firms Corsair Capital and Capital Z Partners Management, is exploring a sale, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

TD Bank is content with its branch network along the East Coast and, for now, is not interested in deals that would take it into new markets, according to its chief financial officer.

Bank CEOs John W. Allison, Ed Wehmer and David Zalman blended good-natured banter with insights on breaking the $10 billion-asset barrier, the danger of bank buyers paying too much and changing attitudes about M&A at an industry conference this week.

Umpqua Holdings in Portland, Ore., and Sterling Financial in Spokane, Wash., have set a $75 million penalty for terminating their planned merger.

Malvern Bancorp is being challenged by a pair of dissidents in a development that highlights investors' growing frustration with the banking industry's inability to put capital to work.

NCAL Bancorp in Los Angeles has agreed to a recapitalization that would give it new ownership.

The third quarter is nearly over, and the news from the trenches is bad. Loan demand is weak. Mortgage volatility caught many bankers off guard. And the only way to make a buck is to buy or sell assets, executives said at the recent Barclays Global Financial Services Conference in New York, the American Mortgage Conference in Raleigh, N.C., and elsewhere.

Old Line Bancshares in Bowie, Md., has raised $12 million through a private placement.

SB Financial (SBFG) in Defiance, Ohio, has filed a shelf registration that would allow it to raise up to $30 million over the next three years.

The acquisition-minded Heritage Financial and Washington Banking are said to be seeking targets to nearly double their size, motivated in part by the recent Umpqua-Sterling deal.

Activist investor Lawrence Seidman is pressuring OBA Financial Services to find a buyer, saying its poor asset growth, lagging efficiency and "abysmal" returns on average assets and average equity make it necessary.

A breakdown of M&A announcements in the financial services industry for the week ended September 14.

King Bancshares in in Kingman, Kan., has merged its consumer finance unit, Western Credit, into its Citizens Bank of Kansas.

Banc of California (BANC) in Irvine has acquired the investment advisory firm Palisades.

Kathleen Brown, who has a long track record in financial services and government and once resigned from the Countrywide Financial board, will advise banking and other companies as a partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips in Los Angeles.