The first thing Michael Blodnick — the head of Glacier Bancorp Inc. in Kalispell, Mont. — looks at when considering buying another bank?
The people that run it.
"We absolutely have to have a confidence level in that management team," Blodnick said during a presentation at a banking conference sponsored by Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP in San Francisco this week. "It's not about the markets for us. It's all about the management team. That's first, foremost, front and center."
That is because he has seen great managers thrive in lousy markets and poor managements struggle in great markets, said Blodnick, president and chief executive of the $7.1 billion-asset company.
Glacier's last bank acquisition was in 2009. It would like to expand via acquisitions in places such as Arizona and New Mexico, Blodnick said.
