Federal bank regulators gave their approval this week to the sale of Bridgeport-based People’s United Bank (PUB) to acquisition-minded Buffalo-headquartered M&T Bank (M&T), which has five branches in Ulster County and boasts the third largest deposit base in the county. The deal, approval for which has been pending for over a year before the regulator, the Federal Reserve Bank, will combine the 36th largest bank in terms of deposits in the country with the 46th largest to create the 17th largest banking institution.
People’s United has 359 branches in all in downstate New York State and every state in New England with the exception of Rhode Island. In recent years, it sold its upstate New York branches. The bank had $64 billion in deposits on June 30 of last year.
As of last June, M&T had 780 branch offices and $152 billion in deposits. Its five Ulster County branches held $495 million in deposits, geographically distributed as follows: $171.5 million in the Highland branch, $110.5 million in Kingston, $70.1 million in Saugerties, $68.3 million in New Paltz, and $54.2 million in Ellenville. Among the banks, only Ulster Savings Bank and Bank of America had larger local deposits.
M&T’s Hudson Valley regional offices are in Fishkill.
The concerns expressed to the regulatpr about layoffs at People’s United, and particularly at its Bridgeport headquarters, were ameliorated by M&T’s promise to offer positions to those employees.
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