Page 20 - BusinessWest March 18, 2024

“For North Shore, this makes a lot of sense strategically because they’re going to expand their footprint around Boston, gain market
share ... all the important things.”
on the average,” he explained. “So scale is the way to achieve that; when you put more assets under one roof and achieve more efficien- cies, you’re driving down per-asset costs, and that’s what this busi- ness model tries to attain.
“We want to use that $6.5 billion chassis that’s headquartered in Easthampton to run the back offices of all of our three subsidiary banks,” he went on, listing bankESB, bankHometown in Central Mass., and the soon-to-be-much-larger North Shore Bank. “We can liberate those banks to do what they do best, which is use the power of their local brand in their communities they’re serving and let the shared service model of the holding company do the grungy stuff to produce efficiencies.”
That business model he mentioned has been an aggressive course of acquisitions that makes sense on every level, but especial- ly those involving new opportunities for achieving growth and diver- sity when it comes to markets and regional vibrancy.
For this issue and its focus on banking & financial services,
we take an in-depth look at the latest of these acquisitions for Hometown Financial and what it means for the institution moving forward.
Another Transaction of Note
As he talked about Hometown’s latest expansion effort, Sosik broke it down into two parts, essentially.
The first is the merger of North Shore into Hometown Financial Group, and then the merger of two of its subsidiary banks, North Shore and Abington, under the North Shore banner — although the Abington name will live on.
Putting those two institutions together under one roof, if you will, gives Hometown a dynamic presence in the eastern part of the state, which, like Western Mass. — and all corners of the state, for that matter — is a highly competitive region charactized by a strong mix of local, regional, and national banks, Sosik said.
Elaborating, he noted that the joining of Abington and North Shore brings a number of benefits, everything from resolution of succession issues at Abington — long-time President and CEO Andrew Raczka is entering retirement — to needed size and scale
for North Shore.
“For North Shore, this makes a lot of sense strategically because
they’re going to expand their footprint around Boston, gain market share ... all the important things,” Sosik told BusinessWest. “But they’re also sliding underneath this $6.5 million company. They’re going to get to run their bank, and yet they can have their cake and eat it too in the sense that they’ll have access to our shared services and gain the efficiences of a much larger company. The benefits are the same for us — ensuring long-term viability and relevance in a very slim-margin industry.”
Rewinding the tape, Sosik said the talks between him and Tier- ney began just over a year ago and accelerated over the past few months. The merger was announced early last month, and the transaction is anticipated to close in the second half of this year.
It is the latest of seven strategic mergers for Hometown Finan- cial Group over the past nine years, an aggressive pattern of acqui- sition that has taken the institition well beyond the 413. Indeed, its reach now extends across most of the state into neighboring Con- necticut and New Hampshire.
Recounting those acquisitions, Sosik said they started in June 2015, when Citizens National Bancorp and its subsidiary, Citizens National Bank, merged into bankESB, which was operating at the time under the name Easthampton Savings Bank. In April 2016, Hometown Community Bancorp and its subsidiary, Hometown Community Bank, joined Hometown Financial Group to become the second subsidiary of the holding company; Hometown Com- munity Bank has since changed its name to bankHometown. And in January 2019, Pilgrim Bancorp and its subsidiary, Pilgrim Bank, joined Hometown Financial Group.
Later that year, Abington Bank merged into Pilgrim Bank, with the name of the combined bank changed to Abington Bank, and Millbury Savings Bank merged into bankHometown. In October 2022, Randolph Bancorp and its subsidiary, Envision Bank, merged into Abington Bank, and last month, North Shore Bancorp and its subsidiary, North Shore
Bank, announced plans
to merge with Abington
Bank; at transaction
Hometown
>>
Continued on page 22
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