For the past two decades, mergers and acquisitions actiVIty m the U.S. banking sector have tremendously increased. The largest U.S. institutions continue to buy smaller institutions such that the number of banks declined from 14,451 at the end of 1982 to 7,283 by year end 2007. During this same period, however, the total number of branches grew from 34,791 to 78,867. In line with the above changes was the deregulation of the banking sector in the Unites States. The above factors encourage U.S. banks and financial institutions to merge in order to save costs and capitalize on the available ...