By Michel Dabaie
Shares of Emclaire Financial Corp. rose 31% to $37.91 after agreeing to be acquired by Farmers National Banc Corp.
Emclaire is the holding company of The Farmers National Bank of Emlenton and Farmers National Banc is the holding company of The Farmers National Bank of Canfield.
Emclaire shareholders can receive either $40 per share in cash or 2.15 shares of Farmers common stock. This is subject to a limit of 70% of shares traded for Farmers shares and 30% for cash.
Farmers said based on its closing price of $17.02 on Wednesday, the transaction is valued at $105 million, or $37.62 per share. Emclaire shares closed Wednesday at $29.
The companies said they expect the deal to close in the second half of 2022.
Shares of Farmers National Banc rose 0.7% to $17.13 in afternoon trading.
“We like the deal for farmers given the expansion into the western Pennsylvania market, which has spurred what has been modest organic growth in Ohio,” said Raymond James, who rates Farmers National at Outperform. “We also believe the bank should be able to improve EMCF’s profitability (which was lower than FMNB’s) through cost savings, without sacrificing the strong credit quality of the franchise.”
Farmers National said in a filing that if the agreement is terminated under certain conditions, Emclaire has agreed to pay a termination fee of $3.75 million.
Write to Michael Dabaie at michael.dabaie@wsj.com
