Home > About BNE > Press Room > 2011 Archive > May > M&T Bank to Create 133 Jobs in Buffalo

M&T Bank to Create 133 Jobs in Buffalo

New posts a result of Wilmington purchase

By Jonathan D. Epstein

May 17, 2011 

M&T Bank Corp.’s top executive said the bank will create 133 new jobs in Buffalo as a result of its purchase of Delaware- based Wilmington Trust Corp., which M&T wrapped up Monday morning.

Chairman and CEO Robert G. Wilmers said in an interview that M&T will create the new jobs in information technology, operations, finance, credit and customer service functions. That’s on top of the 5,000 jobs M&T already has in Western New York, up by 1,800 positions since 2000, he said.

Wilmers said he couldn’t say for certain how many of the jobs are new to the company as opposed to being shifted from Delaware. The bank in February said it would cut 700 of Wilmington Trust’s 2,800 jobs as part of the merger.

“There are certain services you’ve got to centralize,” he said.

Wilmers spoke hours after M&T closed its $351 million stock purchase of Wilmington Trust, the second-biggest acquisition in its history. Wilmington Trust agreed to the deeply discounted deal in November after being hammered by bad commercial real estate loans to property developers that caused heavy losses and severely depleted its capital.

The deal ends Wilmington Trust’s storied 108-year-old history as an independent bank, dating to its founding by members of the du Pont family in 1903. But it strongly enhances M&T’s business regionally in the Mid-Atlantic, where it already has a massive presence in neighboring Maryland. And it gives M&T new heft in money management and corporate client services, with offices nationwide and in Europe.

“I think it’s a great deal for everybody,” Wilmers said. “I think it puts us to another level when it comes to trust and money management. We’ve got a lot of our clients who would be interested in those services, because they’ve got people who have knowledge that we don’t have, expertise that we don’t have. It’ll be great for us. We like to be the best at everything we do in our communities, and this’ll make it even better.”

With the deal, M&T gained 55 branches, 225 ATMs, $10.7 billion in assets, $8.8 billion in deposits and $6.7 billion in loans. It now has the No. 1 market share in Delaware at 23 percent of the

state’s deposits, with 48 branches just in the First State.

And it nearly quadruples its assets under management for wealthy individuals, families and businesses from $22 billion to $81 billion.

M&T now has $78 billion in assets on its balance sheet, with 780 retail and commercial branches and 2,000 ATMs in eight states, the District of Columbia and Ontario. It has major market positions in upstate New York, central Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic.

And Wilmers said he sees opportunities to grow the money management and corporate client services businesses “across the board.” To indicate the strength of their reputation, those businesses will retain the Wilmington Trust brand, “which is something we’ve never done in 23 other acquisitions in 23 years,” Wilmers said.

Under terms of the deal, Wilmington Trust stockholders received 0.051372 shares of M&T stock for each of their shares. Customer accounts became M&T accounts with the closing, but the branches and ATMs will still carry the Wilmington Trust name until the systems conversion over the summer. CEO Donald Foley will join the M&T board.

Along with the purchase, M&T paid off Wilmington Trust’s $330 million federal government investment under the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP. M&T still has $751 million in TARP money but will pay off another $370 million by the end of June.

“Everything’s smooth so far. So far, so good,” Wilmers said. “They’ve got the same values that we have. Their people have the same way of working as we have. They have a similar culture, so I think we’ll fit well together.”

Attention now turns to what M&T might target next for an acquisition. Wilmers said he would not rule out the possibility of making a bid for part or all of whatever branches crosstown rival HSBC Bank USA might decide to sell. But he said he did not know anything else at this point.

HSBC last week said it was reviewing its entire upstate New York retail branch network and might sell the business because it no longer fits with its new strategy outlined Wednesday. M&T also has significant branch operations across upstate New York.

“Obviously you’ve got to be intrigued,” Wilmers said.

jepstein@buffnews.com