New York community banks reach $236 million deal to merge

NBT Bancorp in Norwich, New York, said Monday it struck an all-stock deal to acquire Evans Bancorp in Williamsville, New York.

The $236 million transaction, slated to close in the second quarter of 2025, would deepen the $13.5 billion-asset NBT’s presence in Upstate New York and help fill in a footprint that spans the Empire State to the northern reaches of New England.

The $2.3 billion-asset Evans has 18 branches and serves consumer, business and municipal customers in a region that ranges from Buffalo to Rochester.  

“We are enthusiastic about this opportunity to partner with Evans and are confident it is a high quality and incredibly impactful way to expand,” NBT President and CEO Scott Kingsley said in a press release announcing the deal.

“Adding the greater Buffalo and Rochester communities to the markets served by NBT is a natural geographic extension of our footprint in Upstate New York where we have been very active and successful for nearly 170 years,” he added.

It marks NBT’s second deal in two years. Last year, it acquired the $1.5 billion-asset Salisbury Bancorp in Lakeville, Connecticut.

NBT said the combined organization would have the highest deposit market share in Upstate New York for any bank with assets under $100 billion and would create a network of more than 170 locations from Buffalo to Portland, Maine.

The combination adds to an increasingly active bank M&A market.

More than 70 banks have announced plans to sell so far in 2024, putting the year on track to eclipse last year’s total of 100. M&A in 2023 was held in check in large part by surging interest rates that spiked deposit costs, curbed loan demand and raised the specter of recession.

But the Federal Reserve is on the cusp of lowering rates, perhaps as soon as its Sept. 18 meeting. The futures market is pricing in a 25-basis-point cut in September with a chance for a 50-basis-point move.   

Deals are also getting larger on average.

Through July of this year, bank M&A transactions in aggregate were valued at $9.25 billion, above the $4.15 billion for all of 2023, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Winter Haven, Florida-based SouthState Corp.’s May announcement that it would pay $2 billion in stock to acquire Independent Bank Group in McKinney, Texas, is the largest deal to date in 2024. That topped Kansas City-based UMB Financial’s April plan to purchase Heartland Financial USA in Denver in an all-stock transaction valued at just under $2 billion was a close second.

More recently, First Busey Corp. in Champaign, Illinois, said in late August it would pay $916.8 million in stock to acquire CrossFirst Bankshares in suburban Kansas City.