{"id":15025,"date":"2025-05-13T02:28:17","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T02:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/?p=15025"},"modified":"2025-05-13T02:28:17","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T02:28:17","slug":"pennsylvania-community-bank-strikes-deal-for-in-state-rival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/?p=15025","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania community bank strikes deal for in-state rival"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Citizens & Northern in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, has agreed to pay $44.3 million in stock for in-state rival Susquehanna Community Financial, headquartered in West Milton. <\/figcaption>

root\/Ben Chams – Fotolia<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

Susquehanna Community Financial in West Milton, Pennsylvania, has agreed to sell itself to the $2.6 billion-asset Citizens & Northern Corp. in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, for $44.3 million in stock.<\/p>\n

The $598 million-asset Susquehanna becomes the eighth Pennsylvania-based bank to agree to a merger since September 2023.<\/p>\n

The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter. It would expand buyer Citizens & Northern into several new Central Pennsylvania markets, including Susquehanna’s home base of Union County, where it ranks number 2 in market share, with 31% of the $1.1 billion deposit market, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

“This combination continues our strategic efforts to enter attractive markets through acquisition and leverages the strengths of two reputable community banks that share a similar culture and customer-first mindset,” Citizens & Northern CEO Bradley Scovill said Monday in a press release.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A Citizens & Northern spokesperson did not return a reporter’s call by deadline.<\/p>\n

Citizens & Northern’s announcement Monday comes a little more than two weeks after regulators approved Columbus, Ohio-based Northwest Bancshare’s planned purchase<\/u><\/ps-link> of the $2.3 billion-asset Penns Woods Bancorp in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. That deal, valued at approximately $270 million, is expected to close in late July.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the $6.3 billion-asset CNB Financial Corp in Clearfield, Pennsylvania, expects its $214 million deal<\/u><\/ps-link> for Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania-based ESSA Bancorp, with assets of $2.2 billion, to close in the third quarter.<\/p>\n

A proposed merger-of-equals<\/u><\/ps-link> between the $600 million-asset Mifflinburg Bancorp in Mifflinburg, Pennsylvania, and the $666.5 million-asset Northumberland Bancorp in Northumberland, Pennsylvania, is projected to close in the second or third quarter.<\/p>\n

But the pace of deals involving Pennsylvania community banks is likely to slow, due to a shortage of buyers, according to Robert Kafafian, CEO of the Kafafian Group, a consulting firm that works closely with Keystone State financial institutions.<\/p>\n

“There are fewer and fewer buyers because most are getting sold,” Kafafian told American Banker.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Where a community bank interested in selling might have received a half-dozen or more offers in the past, “now it’s down to one, two or three if they’re lucky,” Kafafian said. “In some cases, it’s none.”<\/p>\n

Citizens & Northern reported first-quarter net income totaling $6.3 million, up 19% from the same period in 2024. It’s projecting 17% earnings accretion in 2026 after acquiring Susquehanna. The combined company would start with $2.3 billion of loans and $2.6 billion of deposits.<\/p>\n

Susquehanna CEO Dave Runk has agreed to join the Citizens & Northern management team as an executive vice president and strategic advisor. “We believe the time is right for SQCF to partner with a significant and growing bank like [Citizens & Northern] that will provide our customers access to a diversified product set and expanded banking capabilities,” Runk said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Susquehanna Chairman Chris Trate is expected to join the merged company’s board of directors. Susquehanna President and Chief Operating Officer Jeffrey Hollenback has agreed to serve as a market president after the deal closes.<\/p>\n

While Citizens & Northern is no stranger to bank merger-and-acquisition activity, Susquehanna would be its first acquisition since July 2020, when it bought<\/u><\/ps-link> the $608 million-asset Covenant Bank in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

Citizens & Northern’s all-stock offer amounts to $15.58 for each Susquehanna share.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Citizens & Northern in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, has agreed to pay $44.3 million in stock for in-state rival Susquehanna Community Financial, headquartered in West Milton. root\/Ben Chams – Fotolia Susquehanna Community Financial in West Milton, Pennsylvania, has agreed to sell itself to the $2.6 billion-asset Citizens & Northern Corp. in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, for $44.3 million in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15026,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[218],"tags":[136,2309,1236,6174,1104,1965,283],"class_list":{"0":"post-15025","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-banking","8":"tag-bank","9":"tag-community","10":"tag-deal","11":"tag-instate","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-rival","14":"tag-strikes"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}