ARCHBOLD, Ohio — Farmers & Merchants Bancorp Inc. has been approved for listing on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
It’s a major milestone for the Archbold-based community bank, which just last year exceeded $1 billion in assets.
“It’s been a strategy for a few years to continue to grow the company but also create liquidity for our shareholders,” said Paul Siebenmorgen, the company’s president and chief executive officer. “You have shareholders who want to buy for the investment but you also have shareholders, this being a 120-year-old company, who have passed this down for generations.”
The listing, announced Friday, takes effect when the market opens on Wednesday, under the ticker symbol FMAO.
For now, the stock continues trading over-the-counter.
Farmers & Merchants was founded in 1897 by J.O. Swisher, Jacob Ehrat, C.M. McLaughlin, A.J. Vernier, L.D Gotshall, and I.W. Gotshall. The company has always been based in Archbold.
It began expanding in the early 1970s, and by the end of the 1980s, it had four full-service branches in Fulton County.
Today, the company operates 24 branches in Ohio and Indiana, including locations in Perrysburg, Sylvania, and Waterville Township.
Mr. Siebenmorgen said the company has been trying to add an average of one new branch a year. He said officials are in discussions on a couple potential projects, but don’t have any finalized expansion plans at this time.
Bank officials said Farmers & Merchants has been publicly traded for most of its history, though it has traded exclusively over-the-counter, meaning it wasn’t listed on one of major recognized securities exchanges. The company reported having 4.6 million shares outstanding at the end of March. Average trading volume has been under 2,000 shares a day.
Shares closed the day Friday up 7.5 percent at $46.25. It has traded as high as $50 a share and as low as $28.05 in the past 52 weeks.
Getting listed on the Nasdaq should get the company more notice from potential shareholders and make it easier for existing shareholders to sell their shares, should they want to do so.
Mr. Siebenmorgen said having shares traded on a major exchange would help the company, should it want to do an acquisition. Most acquisitions, he noted, are done with stock transactions.
“We’re just trying to keep ourselves positioned so we’re always in the best position we can be if that opportunity comes up,” he said.
The bank was recently named to American Banker magazine’s list of the Top 200 Publicly Traded Community Banks and Thrifts, and carries a five-star rating from Florida-based bank rating agency BauerFinancial Inc.
Mr. Siebenmorgen said officials plan to travel to New York to ring the opening bell for the Nasdaq, though the event hasn’t yet been scheduled.
Even so, there was plenty of celebrating Friday in Archbold.
“It’s a fun day today,” Mr. Siebenmorgen said. “Even though it’s been a rainy, icky week, [the listing] has created excitement within the organization. It’s one of those things we’ve been working on and you can’t talk much about. But today we’re popping the top off it.”
Contact Tyrel Linkhorn at tlinkhorn@theblade.com or 419-724-6134.
First Published May 6, 2017, 4:00 a.m.
