North Shore Bank, Abington Bank to Merge
Hometown Financial Group is growing its eastern Massachusetts footprint as it announced a merger between Abington Bank and North Shore Bank on Thursday.
Hometown Financial Group is growing its eastern Massachusetts footprint as it announced a merger between Abington Bank and North Shore Bank on Thursday.
While the state’s regional banks face liquidity pressures and have tightened their credit standards so far this year, Massachusetts’ smaller credit unions and mutual banks saw skyrocketing growth in commercial loan volumes in the first six months of the year.
The merger of Quincy-based Envision Bank into Abington Bank could happen next week now that the deal has received regulatory approval.
More than 50 Envision Bank employees will lose their jobs as part of the bank’s upcoming acquisition by Hometown Financial Group.
Critics of bank consolidation often say mergers harm consumers by limiting competition and reducing local lending. But smaller local banks involved in two recent deals say the moves are necessary for them and their customers to thrive.
In a move that Envision Bank’s President and CEO William Parent said would provide the resources to compete with larger institutions, the bank’s parent company has agreed to sell itself to Easthampton-based Hometown Financial Group Inc.
Easthampton-based Hometown Financial Group, Inc. has agreed to acquire Randolph Bancorp, the parent company of Quincy-based Envision Bank, in a deal valued at approximately $146.5 million.
Hometown Financial Group and its subsidiary Pilgrim Bank have completed their merger with Abington Bank.
Hometown Financial Group is not wasting any time. A week after completing its nearly $54 million acquisition of Cohasset-based Pilgrim Bank, the mutual holding company has already announced another merger.
Close on the heels of its recent merger with Holbrook Cooperative Bank, Abington Bank yesterday announced it will merge later this year with Avon Co-operative Bank.
Abington Bank, a Massachusetts chartered co-operative bank with assets of $135 million, and Holbrook Co-operative Bank, a Massachusetts chartered co-operative with assets of $105 million, announced today that they have executed a definitive merger agreement.