Huntington Bank Acquires Investment Banking and Advisory Firm

Ohio-based Huntington Bancshares has acquired investment banking and advisory firm Capstone Partners as it seeks to widen its service offering to businesses.

The two firms will provide a unified set of banking solutions across traditional commercial banking, investment banking, and capital markets, Huntington said in a statement.

Scott Kleinman, senior executive vice president and co-president of Huntington Commercial Banking, stated: “The combined industry expertise of Huntington and Capstone, along with our ability to serve our growing core middle market client base across the United States, enables us to expand our role as a trusted advisor to a wide variety of businesses.”

Capstone, with $8.4 billion of assets, adds to Huntington’s banking services portfolio and will accelerate the firm’s full-service middle market capabilities across a range of different geographies in the US, Huntington stated.

Included within these extended geographies are 12 US cities such as Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia, with Capstone owning offices in each location.

Capstone primarily operates in the mergers and acquisitions, capital advisory, financial advisory, and special situations and restructuring sectors.

John Ferrara, founder and president of Capstone Partners, said Huntington staff were showing “tremendous interest” in his company’s services for their clients “to round out the full range of solutions they can provide”.

He added: “Our combination will accelerate Capstone’s plans for continued growth while also bolstering Huntington’s banking verticals, especially in sponsor finance, healthcare, technology and telecom, and industrials.”

Huntington merged with TFC a year ago to create one of the largest US regional banks. At the end of the first quarter of 2022, the company had almost $143 billion in total deposits and loans and leases totaling $111.1 billion.