Another longtime Lawrence banking family is getting out of the business, and a large regional bank is set to take its place as part of an approximately $140 million deal. Peoples Bank, which is led by longtime Lawrence businessman Wint Winter Jr., has announced it will be bought by the banking group that operates Bank Midwest in the Kansas City metro area.

According to a release from the two banks, the deal is expected to be finalized in the fourth quarter of this year. Upon completion, Peoples Banks in Lawrence and other parts of Kansas will change names to Bank Midwest.

Peoples operates three branches in Lawrence, but it has a larger local presence because Winter serves as chairman and CEO of the company and continues to be based out of Lawrence. Peoples bank near Sixth and Wakarusa is considered the corporate headquarters.

Winter, though, told me that job losses are not expected in Lawrence as part of the deal. He and other family members held most of the corporate positions within the family-owned bank, and he said there are no plans to close any of the Lawrence branches.

“There are not any overlapping branches,” Winter said of the deal between the two banks. “They don’t have anything in Lawrence, and they really want to be in Lawrence.”

The deal is a remarkable conclusion to a Lawrence family business. Winter’s grandfather, Ship Winter, made a name for himself in Lawrence as a rancher and the owner of the local Chevrolet dealership in the 1960s and 1970s. Winter’s father, Wint Winter Sr., was an attorney who bought a bank in Ottawa in 1972. That bank would become Peoples Bank. At that time it was a fairly typical small-town bank. Today, Peoples has locations in Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico and operates a national mortgage company that does about $1 billion in mortgage loans per year.

Now, the bank is being sold in a deal valued at more than $140 million. Winter said it has been an incredible journey for the family. It included very difficult times during the recession of 2008, when the bank had to sign agreements with the Federal Reserve related to bad loans. Winter acknowledged there were questions about whether the bank would be able to survive the recession.

The bank, though, turned its loan portfolio around, and Winter said this deal came about because multiple banks began seeking to acquire Peoples.

“It is flattering,” Winter said of the deal. “It is the ‘little guy comes through’ type of story. We survived the recession and lasted nearly 50 years. That is a pretty cool thing, and then to have it culminate with a deal with such top-flight people. They are truly professional bankers. All of it is a testament to the great people we have had work with us.”

Bank Midwest’s parent company is National Bank Holdings Corp., which is a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange. The company has 86 banking centers in the Kansas City region, Colorado and Texas. NBH announced it would pay Peoples shareholders $36.3 million in cash and approximately 3.4 million shares of NBH stock. NBH shares are trading at just under $33 a share today.

As for how the deal may affect customers of the bank, Peoples officials are touting that the merger should provide greater convenience, especially for those customers who often are in Kansas City. The merger will mean that Peoples customers will have access to 40 more bank locations in the Kansas City area once the change is made to Bank Midwest.

Peoples also operates banks in Ottawa, Overland Park, Stanley, Stilwell and Louisburg. Additionally, the company has banks in five Colorado communities, including Colorado Springs, and in three New Mexico communities.

National Bank Holdings Corp., in addition to having Bank Midwest, operates banks in the Front Range region of Colorado. NBH CEO Tim Laney said Peoples locations in Colorado and the Kansas City area were particularly attractive to the company.

“The transaction with Peoples bolsters our presence in our home markets of the Colorado Front Range and the greater Kansas City region,” Laney said in a release. “More specifically, the acquisition proves a strong market position in the attractive Colorado Springs and Overland Park markets, and expands our franchise into northern New Mexico. In addition, we believe Peoples brings us one of the strongest retail mortgage banking platforms based within a community bank.”

Peoples operates a mortgage operation that has a national reach and does more than $1 billion in mortgage loans per year. As part of the agreement, though, Peoples will divest or wind down its national mortgage business by the end of 2017. Winter said that part of the deal will involve some job losses, but he said none of those positions are based in the Lawrence area.

As for what’s next for Winter, he said he’ll continue to have a position within NBH, and also will evaluate what he wants to do next. A lawyer by trade, Winter said he may again do some work in that area. Whatever he does, Winter said he will do it in Lawrence. He is a fifth-generation Douglas County resident.

“I’m a homer,” he said.

The deal will give the Winter family multiple resources to pursue other ventures if they choose. The Winter family owns more than 90 percent of the Peoples bank entity, Winter said, with a handful of close associates owning the remainder.

Winter is a former Republican state senator, and he recently has become more active in politics serving as a leader of the Save Kansas Coalition, a group that railed against many of Gov. Sam Brownback’s tax and legislative policies.

Winter, though, said people should not expect him to get back into politics.

“It is kind of like when you think back on your days in high school,” Winter said of his political career. “You think it was cool and it was a lot of fun, but you also think ‘I don’t really need to do that again.'”

Winter, though, said he has had fun in recent years helping people run for office. So, perhaps keep an eye open for that.

Winter said he also plans to spend a significant amount of time helping Bank Midwest establish itself in the Lawrence market. He said the bank will add another major player to the city’s lending market. Peoples had loan limits of about $5 million, but he said Bank Midwest has the resources to make significantly larger loans.

“We are very pleased to be joining NBH,” he said. “Our family has built Peoples over the past five decades with a focus on caring for our customers, employees and the communities we serve. We found those same values at NBH and are proud to partner with the NBH family.”