Peoples Bancorp Acquires Pikeville, Ky., Insurance Office

Jan 3 - Peoples Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ: PEBO) has announced its insurance subsidiary, Peoples Insurance Agency LLC, has acquired a commercial insurance agency office and related customer accounts in the Pikeville, Ky., area.

"We are pleased with this opportunity to expand our presence and capabilities in eastern Kentucky," said Chuck Sulerzyski, Peoples Bancorp's president and CEO. "With this acquisition, we have added strong, professional sales expertise to our agency which complements our existing insurance operations in northeastern Kentucky. Further, we will seek to cross-sell our banking and investment products to the newly acquired insurance customers and prospective customers in the region."

In the transaction, Peoples Insurance used cash to purchase the commercial insurance accounts serviced by the Pikeville Office and assumed some of the liabilities related to the Pikeville Office. The acquired customer accounts are expected to generate approximately $1.6 million in annual insurance commission revenue. The transaction also added four experienced insurance sales producers to Peoples' existing sales staff and six internal client facing employees.

This acquisition was completed effective Jan. 2, 2013. The overall impact of this transaction is not expected to have a material impact on Peoples Bancorp's results of operations or financial condition. 

Peoples Bancorp Inc. is a diversified financial services holding company with $1.9 billion in total assets, 47 locations and 43 ATMs in Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky. Peoples makes available a complete line of banking, investment, insurance and trust solutions through its subsidiaries - Peoples Bank, National Association and Peoples Insurance Agency, LLC. Peoples' common shares are traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol "PEBO," and Peoples is a member of the Russell 3000 index of US publicly-traded companies. Learn more about Peoples at www.peoplesbancorp.com.