-
Emigrant offers art- and antique-related services that most banks do not. "It's not cost-effective for many of the big banks to invest in the expertise and infrastructure to offer art advisory services or to underwrite loans," says Andy Augenblick, the president of Emigrant Bank Fine Art Finance.
June 1 -
Umpqua Bank wanted to offer trust services, but like many banks, it was wary of the expense of a major new initiative.
January 18
The real estate family that owns Emigrant Savings Bank is exploring a sale of its online bank or its 32 New York branches, industry sources said.
The $12 billion-asset bank, which still has to repay its federal bailout money, has hired Barclays Capital to study selling the Internet or branch operations as early as spring, according to three sources familiar with the matter. They declined to be identified because the process is confidential.
The Milstein family — which has controlled Emigrant's parent, New York Private Bank & Trust Corp., since 1986 — wants to pare down Emigrant as the company recovers from big losses on real estate and business loans, one of the sources said.
A sale of the entire 150-year-old bank is off the table, the sources said. But New York Private Bank's chairman and chief executive, Howard Milstein, wants to clean up Emigrant to focus on the family's primary real estate operations in New York and Chicago.
New York Private Bank may hold on to Emigrant's commercial loan operations, the sources said.
A Barclays spokeswoman declined to comment. Emigrant officials did not return a call seeking comment Friday.
An asset sale would help Emigrant repay the $267 million it still owes to the Troubled Asset Relief Program. New York Private Bank has the tenth largest outstanding debt to Tarp, the Treasury Department says. It is also the largest privately owned banking company in the New York City region.
The assets could attract many suitors given the appeal of the New York market. Also, the growing popularity of mobile banking and the heavy cost of operating branches have more banks investing in online operations.
Emigrant had $6 billion of deposits at two Westchester County offices that were gathered online, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s midyear branch data.
The bank reported $9.4 billion of total deposits at Sept. 30.
Logical bidders for the online bank could include Capital One Financial Corp., which in March expects to close its $9 billion purchase of ING Group's online U.S. bank, ING Direct USA. HSBC Holdings PLC is concentrating on online banking services for wealthy customers, but it has been selling not buying U.S. assets lately.
The retail network had $3.2 billion of deposits at 32 branches in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Westchester County and Long Island, according to the FDIC.
Healthy banks with operations in and around New York City that could be interested include: People's United Financial Inc. in Bridgeport, Conn.; New York Community Bancorp in Westbury, N.Y.; and Investors Bancorp Inc. in Short Hills, N.J.
New York Private lost $13.4 million in the third quarter, compared with a profit of $44 million a year earlier, according to the FDIC's website. Nearly 12% of its loans were overdue during the third quarter, with most of its problems tied to one-to-four family home loans.
