WSJ : Huntington Bancshares In Advanced Talks To Buy FirstMerit

(RTTNews) - Huntington Bancshares (HBAN) is in advanced talks to acquire FirstMerit Corp. (FMER), the Wall street journal reported citing people familiar with the matter.

FirstMerit is expected to be sold at a about 25% premium to its roughly $2.67 billion market capitalization, or about $3.3 billion. The deal will mostly be done in stock with a small portion in cash, the report said.

The report indicated that the deal could be announced as soon as late Monday. As with all deal discussions, talks could fall apart at the last minute.

FMER closed Monday trading at $15.37, down $0.71 or 4.42%. However, in the after-hours, the stock up $1.61 or 10.47%.