Columbus, Ohio-based Huntington Bancshares Inc. has completed its previously announced $3.4 billion acquisition of Akron, Ohio-based FirstMerit Corp., parent company of FirstMerit Bank.
Huntington Bancshares operates The Huntington National Bank. It now has more than $100 billion in assets and almost 1,000 branches in Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky and Pennsylvania.
The companies expect to complete their systems integration in the first quarter of 2017, at which time FirstMerit customers’ accounts and the bank’s branches will be converted to Huntington.
FirstMerit closed several branches in Wisconsin prior to the acquisition, with others—including East Troy—on the chopping block once Huntington took control. Huntington plans to keep customers informed about the closures as they occur. When the closures are complete, the company will have 38 Wisconsin branches. As of June, the company had about 231 Wisconsin employees.
In June, FirstMerit president and chief executive officer Kevin Leissring was tapped to become regional president of Huntington in Wisconsin.
Last month, FirstMerit sold four of its Wisconsin branches to Peoples State Bank of Prairie du Chien for $1.2 million. Those branches were in Lancaster, Fennimore, Dickeyville and Potosi in southwest Wisconsin.
