Flushing Financial Corporation (FFIC)

Flushing Financial Corporation was the holding company for Flushing Bank, a community-oriented bank in the New York City area. The bank traces its origins to 1929, when it was organized as Flushing Savings Bank in the Queens neighborhood from which it took its name. The holding company was formed in the 1990s as the bank converted from mutual to stock form, and its common stock began trading on Nasdaq in 1995 under the symbol FFIC. In later years the company moved its headquarters to Uniondale, on Long Island, in Nassau County.

The bank's core business was gathering deposits and making loans, with a particular emphasis on real estate lending. Its loan book was concentrated in multi-family residential and commercial real estate mortgages, one-to-four family mixed-use properties, and one-to-four family residential mortgages, supplemented by commercial business loans, construction loans, and small business lending. Deposit products included checking, savings, money market and NOW accounts and certificates of deposit, and the bank also served municipal customers such as counties, towns, school districts and other public entities. Its branch network was located in Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan, as well as Nassau and Suffolk Counties on Long Island, and it also offered an internet-based branch.

Flushing grew over time through organic lending and selective acquisitions. In 2017 it acquired Empire Bancorp, the Long Island parent of Empire National Bank, which expanded its presence in Suffolk and Nassau Counties and added a business-banking franchise. Like many New York banks with heavy multi-family and commercial real estate exposure, the company faced pressure in the 2023 to 2025 period from higher interest rates, rising funding costs, narrower net interest margins and investor concern about rent-regulated multi-family and office property credit. These conditions weighed on earnings and on the valuation of regional bank shares generally and set the backdrop for consolidation among banks of its size.

In early 2026 Flushing Financial agreed to combine with OceanFirst Financial Corp., a Nasdaq-listed bank holding company based in Toms River, New Jersey and the parent of OceanFirst Bank. The company canceled its fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 earnings call as the transaction was being finalized. OceanFirst filed a registration statement on Form S-4 in 2026 to register the shares to be issued to Flushing stockholders, and the merger was submitted to stockholders for approval.

Under the merger agreement, each outstanding share of Flushing common stock was converted into the right to receive 0.85 of a share of OceanFirst common stock, with cash paid in place of fractional shares. The transaction was structured as a stock-for-stock merger, so Flushing shareholders became shareholders of the combined company rather than receiving a fixed cash payment, and the value of the consideration moved with OceanFirst's share price.

The merger closed effective June 1, 2026, and Flushing Financial Corporation ceased to exist as a separate public company. Nasdaq filed a Form 25 with the SEC on that date to remove the common stock from listing and registration, following a final trading day on Nasdaq of May 29, 2026. On June 2, 2026, the day after closing, Flushing Bank was merged into OceanFirst Bank, National Association, which continues as the surviving bank. After more than ninety years of operation, the Flushing name is now part of the OceanFirst franchise, and holders of FFIC shares now hold OCFC stock.