Boston Private Bank & Trust has sold one of its four Seattle-area branches to fast-growing Heritage Financial Corp.
Heritage, based in Olympia, Wash., said that the branch in Kent, Wash., opened as Heritage Bank on Monday. The branch is the fourth in King County for the $1.3 billion-asset Heritage and its 27th in the Pacific Northwest.
The deal is the latest in a string of acquisitions for Heritage in the last year that has boosted its assets by roughly 32% and increased its total number of branches by nearly 60%. In July, it added nine branches and more than $500 million of assets when it acquired the failed Cowlitz Bank of Longview, Wash, and in November it added another branch when it bough the failed Pierce Commercial Bank of Tacoma, Wash.
Boston Private, meanwhile, has been downsizing. Its $6 billion-asset parent, Boston Private Financial Holdings Inc., recently combined the charters of its four banks in a move that it was expected to trim annual expenses by up to 9%. The Kent location had been a branch of Charter Bank until Charter was merged into Boston Private last month.
