Huntington Bancshares Inc. announced on Tuesday it closed its acquisition of FirstMerit Corporation. Now that the two banks have merged, they will work as one company.
According to Huntington, the acquisition, which was approved by both boards of directors in January, grows the company to approximately $100 billion in assets. It now has almost 1,000 branch locations across eight states including Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
The company said customer relationships with both banks will continue business as usual through 2016.
“We are excited to extend Huntington’s relationship banking value proposition to a larger customer base, and look forward to completing the integration of the FirstMerit and Huntington systems within the first quarter of 2017,” Stephen D. Steinour, chairman, president and CEO of Huntington said.
Employees of both FirstMerit and Huntington banks received lay off notices and new job offers earlier in August for different positions as the two banks merged.
Several branches-- either FirstMerit or Huntington-- are expected to be closed by the end of 2016 or 2017. The FirstMerit name, which has been around for 170 years, will be replaced by Huntington.
Huntington Bancshares Incorporated purchased Ohio-based FirstMerit Corporation in a $3.4 billion deal earlier this year.
Akron Mayor Dan Horrigan said in January that it was disappointing to see the corporate headquarters go, but that the city was grateful to FirstMerit for their long commitment to the city.
