Business Blog

  Commercial banks and savings institutions in the United States are on track to complete three years consecutive quarterly earnings increases, but their lending has dipped for the time in nearly a year. The financial institutions made a total profit of $35.3 billion in the first quarter, a $6.6 billion improvement from the $28.8 billion [...]

In a move that will return Jackson-based Trustmark Corp. to the scene of some its biggest commercial real estate loan troubles, the regional bank has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Bay Bank & Trust Co. of Panama City in a $22 million transaction. Trustmark CEO Jerry Host said the acquisition of the 76-year-old, $247 [...]

In closing five branches and selling another, Merchants and Farmers Bank CEO & Chairman Hugh Potts Jr. says the Kosciusko-based First M&F Corp. is adjusting to a banking market in which fewer customers rely on brick and mortar locations. But he insists the move that involves eliminating slightly more than 50 jobs is an adjustment [...]

Tupelo-based Renasant Corp., parent of Renasant Bank, extended its regional reach with completion of a Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.-assisted acquisition of troubled American Trust Bank of Roswell, Ga. American Trust’s three suburban Atlanta locations will reopen Monday as Renasant Bank. The acquisition expands the $4.5 billion Renasant to 14 full-service locations in North Georgia, providing [...]

By Ted Carter At a recent press conference, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairman Sheila Bair drew a distinction between investigations of bank executives and directors her office is doing and the criminal probes launched by the FDIC’s inspector general. She said her agency has approved about 200 civil actions against bank officers and directors aimed [...]