M&T Invading West; Former Keycorp Ace Leads the Charge

M&T Mortgage, Buffalo, has opened a West Coast operation. And it has hired a home-lending star to get the venture going.

Jeffrey A. Evershed, former president and chief executive of Keycorp Mortgage Co., will head up M&T's western division. He will run the operation out of Portland, Ore., his hometown. Another former Keycorp executive, Paul M. Westby, also joins M&T as an executive vice president.

The move west is part of M&T's plan to aggressively expand while the lending industry lags. But until now, the subsidiary of M&T Corp. has centered most of its activity in the Northeast.

It purchased Albany, N.Y.-based Statewide Funding Corp. last month. In December, it purchased seven New York State branches of Chemical Bank and Ithaca Bancorp.

M&T Mortgage originated $850 million of home loans last year, a 15% decline from volume a year earlier. It now services $4.7 billion of loans.

James J. Beardi, president of M&T Mortgage, said the lender's move to the West was "unusual."

"We are swimming a little bit upstream, I suppose," by opening the Western operation, he said. But M&T is doing it "because of our long-term belief that the mortgage business is a sound business."

At M&T West, as executives of the company call it, Mr. Evershed will be given much leeway as president. The lender has opened branches in Seattle, Portland, and Salt Lake City. A Denver office will open soon.

M&T West will do more than just mortgage banking, Mr. Evershed said. By dabbling in lending areas usually mined by commercial banks - like construction and home equity lending - M&T hopes to find success in its new markets.

Mr. Evershed said industry consolidation over the last year has left many solid business opportunities open to the new operation.

"We don't have any preconceived notions of what we want to do," Mr. Beardi said. "We are not going to be a buyer of NationsBank. That is not our game plan."

M&T is betting much of its success there on Mr. Evershed. He left Keycorp in May after five years there, citing family reasons when he resigned.

His tenure was marked by Keycorp's rapid expansion and his ability to meld acquisitions into its mortgage operation. The lender, which became known as "Mergers 'R' Us," acquired 25 mortgage companies from 1990 to 1994.

The topper was Keycorp's merger with Society Bank early last year. In April, Mr. Evershed said the merger was the best and fastest he ever worked on.

But just five months after his resignation, Keycorp announced that it was trying to sell its mortgage company. A deal has yet to be announced.

Mr. Evershed, an optimistic executive with a hearty laugh, had been pondering his next move for several months. He was considering starting his own mortgage operation. But he also went on interviews for several high- profile mortgage positions that he declined to identify.

James J. Beardi, president of M&T Mortgage, called Mr. Evershed soon after he announced that he was leaving Keycorp. Mr. Beardi and Mr. Evershed were acquaintances in New York, when Mr. Evershed lived in Albany where Keycorp was based at the time.

Mr. Evershed called the relationship informal.

But in December, the negotiations between M&T and Mr. Evershed intensified. "They kept coming back and seemed more interested" than other suitors, he said.

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