National City Corp., which has been battered by the collapse of the subprime lending market, is in talks to be acquired by several potential suitors, including Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services Group Inc. and Toronto-based Bank of Nova Scotia, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The speculation prompted National City's stock shares to defy the Wall Street trend of plummeting bank stocks, as the company's stock gained 14 cents to trade at $2.37 this morning. However, National City's stock remains far off its 52-week high of $26.01.
Cleveland-based National City has reported four-straight quarters of losses totaling more than $2 billion.
National City entered the Milwaukee market last year, when it acquired MAF Bancorp Inc., the parent company of MidAmerica Bank that had acquired St. Francis Capital Corp., the former parent company of St. Francis Bank, in 2003. MidAmerica Bank operated 24 branches with $1.3 billion in deposits in the Milwaukee area.
In a note to clients today, BMO Capital Markets analyst Lana Chan wrote, "National City should be one of the key beneficiaries of the enacted government bailout plan as it is one of the most exposed in our universe to distressed assets, and an increased cap on FDIC deposit insurance from $100,000 to $250,000 should increase confidence in the bank's deposits."
Report: National City is for sale
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