Regionals and Citigroup: Financial Winners

Beaten down regionals were surging on M&A hopes.
By Dan Freed ,

NEW YORK (

TheStreet

) -- Shares of regional banks perceived as potential M&A targets were surging Friday in the wake of an announced deal in which

Bank of Montreal

(BMO) - Get Report

will acquire

Marshall & Ilsley

(MI)

for $4.1 billion, or $7.75 per share.

Though the price was 34% above Marshall and Ilsley's $5.79 closing price on Thursday, Marshall & Ilsley shares had risen no higher than $7.01 per share as of early Friday afternoon. They had dropped from that high to $6.83--still a 17.88% gain on the day.

At least three shareholder groups sent out press releases announcing their intention to oppose the deal on the grounds that the price being paid was too low, though an analyst note from Evercore argued

BMO was paying too much

.

Among the regional banks trading higher Friday on investor hopes they will get acquired were

Synovus Financial

(SNV) - Get Report

, up 3.01% to $2.57,

Regions Financial

(RF) - Get Report

, up 3.92% to $6.37 and

KeyCorp

(KEY) - Get Report

, which had risen by 3.48% to $8.37 early Friday afternoon. Shares of

SunTrust

(STI) - Get Report

were up 3.63% to $26.80.

As for the big banks,

Citigroup

(C) - Get Report

was a standout, up 1.6% to $4.66.

Wells Fargo

(WFC) - Get Report

and

Bank of America

(BAC) - Get Report

were both up about half a percentage point to $30.19 and $12.57 respectively.

JPMorgan Chase

(JPM) - Get Report

shares, however, were down by 0.16% to $39.95.

--

Written by Dan Freed in New York

.

Disclosure: TheStreet's editorial policy prohibits staff editors, reporters and analysts from holding positions in any individual stocks.

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