Peoples Bancorp To Acquire Ohio Heritage Bancorp For About $37.6 Mln

(RTTNews) - Peoples Bancorp Inc. (PEBO), the parent company of Peoples Bank, National Association, said Friday that it has agreed to buy Ohio Heritage Bancorp, Inc. (OHHB), the parent company of Coshocton, Ohio-based Ohio Heritage Bank, in a cash and stock deal valued at about $37.6 million.

Under the terms of the deal, shareholders of Ohio Heritage Bancorp will receive merger consideration equal to $110.00 for each share of Ohio Heritage Bancorp common stock, consisting of $93.50 in Peoples common stock and $16.50 in cash.

Founded in 1995, Ohio Heritage Bank operates six full-service banking locations in Ohio: two in Coshocton and one each in Newark, Mount Vernon, Heath, and New Philadelphia. As of March 31, 2014, Ohio Heritage Bank had about $252 million in total assets, which included about $182 million in loans, and about $183 million in total deposits.

Peoples expects the deal to be completed in the third quarter of 2014.

Based on that timing, Peoples expects the deal to be neutral-to-slightly accretive to 2014 diluted earnings per common share. Starting in 2015, the earnings accretion is projected to range from $0.10 to $0.12 per diluted common share annually.

Peoples Bancorp also said it plans to release results for the first quarter before the market opens on April 22.