Page 19 - BusinessWest March 18, 2024

Branching Out — Again
Hometown Financial Group Continues Course of Acquisition
BY GEORGE O’BRIEN
[email protected]
“Margins have been falling steadily, and the only way to beat that back and try to win that battle is drive down costs, at least on the average.”
Matt Sosik referred to it as a “mutual admiration society.” That’s how he chose to describe the respect that
he developed for the manner in which Kevin Tierney
had grown North Shore Bank into a force in that region of the Commonwealth and, likewise, how Tierney respected what Sosik had done with Easthampton-based Hometown Financial Group, using acquisition and organic growth to transform it into a $4.7 billion multi-bank holding company with a reach that extends across Western and Central Mass., the South Shore, and into Northeastern Conn.
This mutual admiration eventually became the catalyst for talks to bring the institutions together, said Sosik, chairman and CEO of Hometown Financial, adding that North Shore will become part of the Hometown family of banks through
a merger of Abington Bank, acquired by Hometown in 2019, into North Shore.
The combined bank will have more than $3 billion in assets and 25 full-service retail locations across the Bay State’s North and South Shore regions and Southern New Hampshire. Meanwhile, Hometown will become, with more than $6 billion in assets, one of the largest mutual banks in the country, said Sosik, adding that the merger gives the group more of what banks need in this challenging day and age — size.
Indeed, when asked what greater size — $6.4 billion in assets compared to $4.7 billion — provides, Sosik started by saying simply, “survival.”
“Margins have been falling steadily, and the only way to beat that back and try to win that battle is drive down costs, at least
Matt Sosik says Hometown’s latest acquisition
is part of
an ongoing initiative to gain needed size and extend the institution’s footprint.
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