On June 24, 2016, Berkshire Hills Bancorp, Inc. (“Berkshire Hills”), Berkshire Bank, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and First Choice Bank, (“First Choice”), Lawrenceville, New Jersey, entered into an agreement pursuant to which Berkshire Bank will acquire First Choice for approximately $111.7 million in Berkshire Hills common stock. First Choice Loan Services Inc., a mortgage lending subsidiary of First Choice, will become a subsidiary of Berkshire Bank. Under the terms of the merger agreement, First Choice shareholders will be entitled to receive 0.5773 shares of Berkshire Hills common stock per share of First Choice common stock.

Luse Gorman acted as legal counsel to Berkshire Hills and Berkshire Bank in the transaction. The Luse Gorman team was led by Lawrence M.F. Spaccasi (Corporate/M&A), Marc P. Levy (Corporate/M&A) and Max Seltzer (Executive Compensation), and included Megan McKinney (Corporate/M&A).

Berkshire Hills has approximately $7.8 billion in total assets and operates 93 banking offices in Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, and Vermont.

First Choice has approximately $1.1 billion in total assets and operates 8 banking offices near Princeton, New Jersey and the greater Philadelphia area. First Choice Loan Services Inc. operates loan production offices in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.