On April 25, 2018, First Interstate BancSystem, Inc. (“First Interstate”), Billings, Montana, and Northwest Bancorporation, Inc. (“Northwest”), Spokane, Washington, entered into a definitive merger agreement pursuant to which Northwest will merge with and into First Interstate, with First Interstate as the resulting company. Northwest shareholders will receive 0.516 shares of First Interstate common stock for each share of Northwest common stock for total merger consideration of approximately $160.9 million. As part of the merger, Inland Northwest Bank, the subsidiary of Northwest, will merge with and into First Interstate Bank, the subsidiary of First Interstate.

Luse Gorman served as legal counsel to First Interstate in the transaction. The Luse Gorman team consisted of Scott Brown, Lawrence Spaccasi, Marc Levy and Zachary Davis  (Corporate/M&A) and Max Seltzer (Executive Compensation).

First Interstate has approximately $12.3 billion in total assets and operates over 120 banking offices throughout Idaho, Montana, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington and Wyoming.

Northwest has approximately $826.8 million in total assets and operates 20 banking offices across Washington, Idaho and Oregon.