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M&T Bank Corp.'s fourth-quarter earnings fell 28% as the regional bank reported higher expenses related to its May acquisition of Wilmington Trust, though revenue and credit quality continued to improve.
January 17
M&T Bank Corp. is ready to be a buyer again, its chief financial officer says.
"If opportunities come up we're in great shape," Rene Jones said in an interview Tuesday.
Fourth-quarter profits fell 19% from the previous quarter, and 28% from a year earlier, to $147.7 million, the Buffalo bank reported Tuesday. Part of the blame lay in a $79 million impairment charge involving its minority stake in a commercial mortgage lender. A large charitable donation as well as merger and regulatory costs also hurt the bottom line.
Yet M&T's May 2011 purchase of Wilmington Trust Corp. began to pay off, Jones says. Merger expenses were higher than a year earlier, but they fell for the third consecutive quarter. M&T also began to realize some of the 15% in annual savings it expects to generate from the deal by yearend; the integration of Wilmington's operations over the summer lowered employee costs by $13 million in the quarter.
M&T has a track record of making acquisitions when the economy is slow. It "would not be a problem" for M&T to entertain potential acquisitions across its 725-branch, seven-state footprint in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions, Jones says. "We pride ourselves on being prepared."
With Florida's second biggest lender — Miami Lakes, Fla.-based BankUnited Inc. —
Do not count on it, Jones says.
"We tend to stick pretty close to home," he says. "That's a long way from where we are."
M&T — like JPMorgan Chase & Co., which reported earnings last week — had a good quarter in business lending. Stronger business lending — particularly in New York where rival HSBC Holdings PLC is retreating — helped M&T increase overall loans for the second consecutive quarter.
