PNC Bank to buy National City Bank - News

Its official today morning that, PNC Bank  headquartered in Pittsburgh plans to buy Cleveland's National City Bank for $5.58 billion.

The deal comes within hours of PNC Financial receiving approval for $7.7 billion in cash from the government under the $750 billion government program aimed at relieving the ongoing credit crisis.

The acquisition makes PNC Financial/PNC Bank the nation's fifth largest bank by deposits and will give it the fourth most branches of PNC Bank. That means people can now access to more pnc bank locations. The new combined bank will have about $180 billion in deposits and more than 2,700 branches. 

PNC Bank will pay $5.2 billion for National City Bank through a stock transaction that values National City at about $2.23 per share, an 18.9 percent discount from Thursday's closing price of $2.75.

The deal is expected to close by the end of the year. PNC bank stocks are rising on the stock market, NYSE and Dow Jones after the news.