To call Citizens Republic Bancorp an institution in Flint would be an understatement. It's been around town for 141 years. Billy Durant borrowed money from Citizens to help incorporate General Motors. That's all changing.

The downtown Flint-based bank will be sold in a $950 million, all-stock deal to Cleveland Ohio-based FirstMerit.

The combined bank will have $24 billion in assets and $19 billion in deposits, the banks said. That would fall near the top 50 banks in the country.

Citizens Republic says customers shouldn't notice a change. But the name will change to FirstMerit next year. And there will likely be job losses at its downtown Flint headquarters. But so far how many people would go hasn't been revealed.

Citizens Republic, still owes the government some $345 million in TARP funds .

The Wall Street Journal reports the bank made the majority of its loans to businesses and had a large share of its portfolio dedicated to commercial real estate. The bank saw a jump in delinquencies in the second quarter.

For the Wall Street Journal story click here: http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2012/09/13/michigan-bank-citizens-republic-sells-for-950-million/

For the MLive story click here http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2012/09/since_1871_citizens_bank_has_s.html#incart_river_default