Green Bay, Wisconsin-based Nicolet Bankshares will buy Iowa City, Iowa-based MidWestOne Financial Group in an $864 million deal that would roughly double the acquirer’s branch footprint, including adding 15 locations in and around Minnesota’s Twin Cities, the banks announced Thursday.
The transaction, expected to close in the first half of 2026, would push Nicolet well past the $10 billion threshold, creating a bank with $15.3 billion in assets, $13.1 billion in deposits, $11.3 billion in loans and 110 locations. MidWestOne counts 57 branches on its own.
Nicolet CEO Mike Daniels called the deal “transformational,” noting the upcoming 25th anniversary of the bank’s founding.
“Our goal with every acquisition is not just to become bigger, but to become a better bank,” Daniels said. “We have worked hard to put actions to those words.”
Under the deal, MidWestOne investors will receive 0.3175 shares of Nicolet common stock, or $41.37 in value, for each MidWestOne share they own, based on Nicolet’s $130.31 closing stock price from Wednesday, the banks said.
MidWestOne directors will hold four of Nicolet’s 12 board seats once the deal closes, and the Iowa bank’s executive leadership team is expected to remain in place, the acquirer said in an investor presentation.
MidWestOne shareholders are slated to own roughly 31% of the combined entity once the transaction is complete.
In a statement Thursday, MidWestOne CEO Chip Reeves called Nicolet “a company whose culture, business model and consistent top-tier financial performance is something we have long admired.”
“The combination of these two community banks provides a great opportunity for our respective teams to continue to deliver high-quality, relationship-based banking products, services and expertise to our clients, as well as generate long-term value for our stockholders,” Reeves said.
The deal will push Nicolet into Iowa for the first time – and immediately rank it in the top five in deposit market share across the state, according to the investor presentation.
The crown jewel for expansion, though, might be Minneapolis. Nicolet counts two offices there. But buying MidWestOne would give the Wisconsin bank more than $1 billion in added deposits from the Twin Cities area, to go along with 15 fresh branches.
Buying MidWestOne also would boost Nicolet’s wealth-management footprint, adding $3.4 billion in assets under advisement across new markets, the Wisconsin bank said.
Including expected cost savings, the deal is estimated to be 37% accretive to 2026 earnings and mildly dilutive to tangible book value per share with a negligible earnback period, Nicolet said.
The bank sought to reassure investors by touting its history of nine acquisitions over the past 12 years. The last of those came in 2022, when Nicolet bought Eau Claire, Wisconsin-based Charter Bank.
Not every proposed acquisition has worked out. Nicolet terminated a proposed $130 million acquisition of West Bend, Wisconsin-based Commerce Financial Holdings in May 2020, citing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as a factor.
Bank mergers and acquisitions now, however, appear ever more booming. Specifically, 2025’s third quarter saw the most dealmaking among banks in four years, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. Fifty-two U.S.-based bank deals were announced between July and September – the highest figure since the third quarter of 2021, which saw 59.
And the fourth quarter is off to a scorching pace. The Nicolet acquisition marks the third nine-figure deal this week in the Midwest alone. Bloomington, Illinois-based HBT Financial agreed Monday to acquire CNB Bank Shares in a $170.2 million deal that would give it access to the St. Louis market. Meanwhile, Canfield, Ohio-based Farmers National Bank Corp. said Wednesday it would acquire Middlefield Banc Corp. in a $299 million deal that would give it a foothold in Columbus.
Seaport Research Partners analyst Laurie Havener Hunsicker said 140 bank deals had been announced this year, as of Oct. 17. That’s the highest total since 2022, when 156 transactions were proposed, she said.
“We view the people at MidWestOne as true kindred spirits in our approach to serving customers, communities, and employees,” Daniels said. “They have been stalwarts of the community for over 90 years, and we intend to be great stewards of that legacy.”
