On August 11, 2025, BankFinancial Corporation, Burr Ridge, Illinois, announced the signing of a merger agreement with First Financial Bancorp., Cincinnati, Ohio, pursuant to which BankFinancial will merge with and into First Financial in a stock transaction valued at approximately $142 million.

BankFinancial Corporation is the holding company for BankFinancial, NA and has approximately $1.4 billion in assets and conducts business through 18 full-service banking offices located in Cook, DuPage, Lake, and Will Counties in Illinois.

First Financial Bancorp. is the holding company for First Financial Bank and has approximately $18.6 billion in assets and conducts business through 128 full-service banking centers located in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois.

Luse Gorman is serving as co-counsel to BankFinancial Corporation in the transaction. The Luse Gorman team included Ned Quint and Max Seltzer.

Luse Gorman has acted as counsel on more than 100 bank M&A transactions during the past seven years and on more bank M&A transactions than any other law firm in the nation over the past 20 years. To learn more about our mergers and acquisitions practice, please visit our website.