Glacier to Merge its 11 Banks Into One

Glacier Bancorp Inc. in Kalispell, Mont., is planning to collapse its 11 bank subsidiaries into a single commercial bank in a move aimed at streamlining its operations and lowering its overall compliance costs.

The $7.2 billion-asset company said in a news release late Wednesday that the 11 banks in Montana, Colorado, Utah, Washington and Wyoming, would retain their names and autonomy, operating as divisions of Glacier Bank. The individual banks would also retain their local boards of directors.

"We have studied this internal consolidation for over a year and are excited to replace our existing structure with one that should minimize our regulatory burden," Mick Blodnick, Glacier's president and chief executive officer said in the news release. "This move will ease our reporting requirements [and]...will free up more resources to be better spent developing and delivering products and services to our customers in a faster and more efficient manner."

A number of bank holding companies have consolidated charters in recent years in an effort to ease their regulatory burden and trim overhead. Boston Private Financial Corp. recently combined its multiple banks to reduce its annual expenses by up to 9%. In 2010, Synovus Financial Corp. in Columbus, Ga., combined the charters of more than two-dozen banks throughout the Southeast into a single commercial bank charter.

Blodnick did not say how much the charter consolidation would save Glacier each year. The company said it expects the consolidation to be completed by the end of the second quarter.