Limestone Bancorp jumps on $208-mln buyout deal with Peoples Bancorp

Peoples Bancorp

25/10/2022 14:02

** Shares of Limestone Bancorp Inc  LMST.O  climb nearly 28%
to $25.12 in premarket trading
    ** Stocks to open at its highest in more than a decade, if
gains hold
    ** Co agrees to be acquired by Peoples Bancorp Inc  PEBO.O 
in a $208.2-mln deal
    ** All-stock deal will see LMST shareholders receive 0.9 of
PEBO shares for each share they own, a premium of almost 39% to
LMST's last close  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nFWN31Q41V
    ** Deal expected to be immediately add to PEBO's estimated
earnings before one-time costs, banks say
    ** Small- and mid-size lenders have been seeking acquisition
deals to scale up and compete better with big U.S. banks
    ** Last month, Provident Financial Services Inc  PFS.N  said
it was planning to acquire Lakeland Bancorp  LBAI.O  in a deal
valued at $1.3 bln 
    ** PEBO also reports better-than-expected quarterly earnings
of 92 cents per share vs analyst estimates of 83 cents per share
- Refinitiv IBES data  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nTUA6XNTWQ
    ** PEBO shares fall 3.6% premarket
    ** YTD, LMST up 5.31% as of last close
 (Reporting by Anirban Chakroborti in Bengaluru)
 ((Anirban.Chakroborti@thomsonreuters.com;))