Dive Brief:
- Cincinnati-based First Financial Bancorp has agreed to acquire Munster, Indiana-based Finward Bancorp, the holding company of Peoples Bank, in a $208 million all-stock transaction, the companies said Tuesday.
- Finward would give First Financial another $2 billion in assets, $1.7 billion in deposits, $1.5 billion in loans and $412 million in wealth assets under management. The acquisition is also set to expand First Financial’s footprint in northwest Indiana and Chicago by 24 branches.
- The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter with conversion occurring in the second quarter of next year, First Financial CEO Archie Brown said during the bank’s second-quarter earnings call Wednesday.
Dive Insight:
The deal marks the third acquisition in about 13 months for First Financial, which has about $22.4 billion in assets and 151 branches in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois.
In June 2025, First Financial said it was acquiring Westfield Bancorp in a $325 million deal to boost its presence in northeast Ohio. About two months later, the lender said it would buy Burr Ridge, Illinois-based BankFinancial Corp. in a $142 million deal to expand its footprint in the Chicago area. The latter deal closed in January, and conversion occurred last month.
Peoples Bank’s two dozen locations are in Lake and Porter Counties in northwest Indiana and Chicagoland. Combining the bank’s deposits with those gained through the BankFinancial acquisition, First Financial will count $4.1 billion in deposits in Chicago and northwest Indiana, Brown said Wednesday. The deal would make Chicago and northwest Indiana the bank’s second-largest market.
Brown called Finward a strategic but “smaller, incremental deal,” and said the bank isn’t ruling out more mergers and acquisitions in 2027, after integrating Finward.
“We don't see ourselves on the sideline,” Brown told analysts during the earnings call. “There's just a window here where opportunities are popping up, and so we'll assess them as they come.”
Asked whether the bank’s projected size in the Chicago area seems sufficient from which it can grow organically, or if another deal is needed to drive growth, Brown said “$4 billion at least gets us to a place where we've got a platform to grow with talent, which, when we're smaller, is harder to do. So we think we've gotten ourselves to a level we can do that now.”
The post-deal size also means First Financial can spend more to introduce the brand to the market, he said.
Still, the lender sees more acquisition opportunities in the Chicagoland market, and acquiring BankFinancial and Finward “will give us opportunities” to have “more conversation, discussions over the next year or two,” Brown said.
“We think there's more to do,” Brown said. “But I think if this is where we landed, it's just big enough.”
Under the terms of the deal, Finward shareholders will receive 1.35 shares of First Financial common stock, valuing the transaction at about $208 million, or $47.90 per Finward share, based on First Financial's closing stock price Monday.
The acquisition is expected to be about 5% accretive to First Financial's earnings per share, and tangible book value dilution is estimated to be 0.4% with an earnback period of about six months. First Financial is buying Finward at 1.4 times tangible book value, according to an investor presentation.
Peoples Bank locations will be rebranded under the First Financial name, according to the investor presentation.
“We are creating a stronger regional banking franchise with expanded capabilities, greater resources, and a sharper focus on delivering exceptional service,” Peoples Bank CEO Benjamin Bochnowski said in the news release. “We are confident this partnership will create meaningful opportunities for our customers and employees, while preserving the community-centered values that have defined our organization for generations.”
