NSTS Bancorp, Inc. (NSTS)

NSTS Bancorp, Inc. was the holding company for North Shore Trust and Savings, a federally chartered savings association headquartered in Waukegan, Illinois. The bank traces its origins to 1921 and spent more than a century serving households and small businesses in Lake County, Illinois, north of Chicago. The holding company was organized in Delaware to carry out the bank's conversion from the mutual to the stock form of ownership.

The bank operated as a traditional community thrift. On the deposit side it offered checking accounts, savings accounts, money market accounts and time deposits to retail and business customers. On the lending side its portfolio was concentrated in one- to four-family residential mortgages, with additional multi-family and commercial real estate loans, construction loans, home equity lines of credit and consumer loans.

North Shore Trust and Savings served its market through a main office in Waukegan, a second full-service branch in Waukegan, a branch in Lindenhurst, Illinois, and a loan production office in Chicago. The small branch footprint and the loan production office reflected an effort to reach borrowers beyond its immediate home market while keeping a local presence.

NSTS Bancorp completed its stock offering in January 2022 and its common stock began trading on the Nasdaq Capital Market under the symbol NSTS. As with many recently converted thrifts, the company had a modest share count and a capital base that was large relative to its earnings, and it faced the usual challenge of building scale and profitability as an independent institution in a competitive, rate-sensitive banking environment.

On May 12, 2026, NSTS Bancorp announced that it had signed a definitive merger agreement with Brookfield Bancshares, Inc. and its subsidiary First National Bank of Brookfield. Under the agreement, NSTS shareholders were to receive $14.31 in cash for each share of common stock, for an aggregate merger consideration of approximately $73.7 million, including the treatment of restricted stock and stock options. NSTS stockholders approved the transaction at a special meeting held on September 29, 2026.

The merger was completed at 12:01 a.m. Eastern Time on October 1, 2026, when NSTS merged into a Brookfield merger subsidiary and then into Brookfield Bancshares, which survived. On September 30, 2026, the company asked the Nasdaq Capital Market to suspend trading after the close and to file a Form 25 to delist and deregister the common stock. North Shore Trust and Savings became a wholly owned subsidiary of Brookfield and kept its name and federal savings association charter.