Page 23 - BusinessWest April 18, 2022

“I talk about low margins and scale, but there’s a dynamic that’s ever-increasing; we now have competitors that aren’t just credit unions or banks,” he went on, listing players such as SoFi, Chime, and others. “The non-bank competition is out to steal our lunch, and to an extent, they will be successful. But we need to be able to play in their space, and that takes scale, too.”
Hometown’s acquisition of publicly traded Randolph Bancorp will provide more of that scale, said Sosik, noting that talks between the
institutions started last fall and quickly intensified.
Under the terms of the merger agreement, which has been unani- mously approved by both boards of directors, Randolph shareholders will receive $27 in cash for each share of Randolph common stock. The total transaction value is approximately $146.5 million.
This transaction will be the sixth strategic merger for Hometown in the last seven years. In 2015, Hometown acquired Citizens National Bancorp Inc., based in Putnam, Conn., and then merged with Hometown Com- munity Bancorp. MHC, the hold-
ing company for Hometown Bank,
in 2016. It then acquired Pilgrim Bancshares Inc. and Abington Bank in 2019, and later that same year merged Millbury Savings Bank with and into bankHometown.
Like those other acquisitions, this one will enable Hometown to achieve needed additional growth quickly
and effectively, Sosik said.
“From the Hometown Financial Group per-
spective, this is a move that allows us to grow with very little additional cost,” he told Business- West. “This particular acquisition is going to be extremely efficient for Hometown.”
And, as noted, it will give Hometown a much larger and stronger position in a very competitive banking climate on the South Shore.
“With the addition of Envision Bank, we more than double our full-service locations and
“We aren’t running our company to survive three years or five years; we’re running to survive 20 and 30 years. We want to be a relevant player in all our markets, and
we want to ensure our long-term survival, and to do that, scale is the name of the game.”
assets in Eastern Massachusetts,” he explained. “This dramatically increases the branding power we have on the South Shore, as well as market share.”
One matter still to be determined — and there is time to make this decision — is what name will go on the new entity, said Sosik, adding that both brands (Envision and Abington) have value and cache in that market.
“We’ll try to figure out what’s the best brand in that market for that combined bank,” he said. “We want to be thoughtful about that, and we’ll give it some thought.”
Meanwhile, the search for additional strategic acquisitions and partnerships with like-minded acquisitions will continue, he added, because scale will only become more important in the years and decades to come.
As he said, it’s a survival tactic. u
— George O’Brien
BusinessWest
BANKING & FINANCIAL SERVICES
APRIL 18, 2022 23