A Webster Bank branch in downtown Boston. Photo by James Sanna | Banker & Tradesman Staff
Connecticut-based Webster Bank plans to complete its merger with Sterling National Bank in February after receiving regulatory approval for the deal.
The Federal Reserve Board of Governors announced on Friday that it had approved the application from Webster’s parent company, Webster Financial Corp. to merge with Sterling Bancorp, which is based in Pearl River, New York.
The banks said in a joint statement that they expect to complete the deal on or around Feb. 1. The deal had previously received approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the banks said all required regulatory approvals to complete the merger have now been received.
The all-stock transaction, which was announced in April, is valued at approximately $10.3 billion. The deal is being done as a merger-of-equals, with Sterling merging into Webster and the combined bank keeping the Webster Bank name. Webster shareholders will own approximately 50.4 percent of the combined company, and Sterling shareholders will own about 49.6 percent.
The combined company will have approximately $65.5 billion in assets, $42 billion in loans, and $54 billion in deposit balances, the banks said in the statement. Webster will have more than 200 financial centers in the Northeast region.
No branches will close as a result of the transaction, according to the Fed’s report on the merger. Before agreeing to acquire Sterling, Webster had announced a branch consolidation that reduced its footprint by about 17 percent. Webster, which has about $35 billion in assets, now has 19 branches in Eastern Massachusetts.
The banks had said in April that the combined company would establish new corporate headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, while keeping a multi-campus presence in the Greater New York City area and in Waterbury, Connecticut, where Webster is currently based.
John R. Ciulla, chairman, president & CEO of Webster, will be president and CEO of the combined company, while Sterling’s current leader, Jack Kopnisky, will be executive chairman for two years. After two years, Ciulla will become chairman, president and CEO, and Kopnisky will continue in a consulting capacity for another 12 months, the banks had said in April.
The Webster and Sterling deal was one of three U.S. bank mergers that the Fed approved on Friday. Still awaiting the Fed’s approval is the deal that would see Buffalo-based M&T Bank acquire Bridgeport, Connecticut-based People’s United Bank, which has more than 60 branches across Massachusetts. M&T does not currently have retail branches in Massachusetts.
Massachusetts has already seen three other large bank deal this year, with Eastern Bank acquiring Century Bank, Rockland Trust acquiring East Boston Savings Bank, and the parent company of Silicon Valley Bank acquiring Boston Private.
