Hometown Financial Group in Easthampton, Massachusetts, agreed to acquire in-state peer Randolph Bancorp in Quincy for $146.5 million in cash.
Hometown, a multi-bank holding company whose units include Abington Bank near Boston, said the deal was a bid to bolster its presence in the heavily populated eastern Massachusetts region. The agreement includes Randolph’s Envision Bank, which operates south of Boston and has $800 million of assets. The buyer will merge the target bank with Abington, which has $600 million of assets.
“With the addition of Envision Bank, we more than double our full-service locations and assets in eastern Massachusetts,” Matthew Sosik, CEO of Hometown Financial, said in a release announcing the deal after markets closed Monday.
Should the deal close in the fourth quarter as planned, Abington Bank would have $1.4 billion of assets and 11 branches across the South Shore of eastern Massachusetts, including the towns of Abington, Avon, Braintree, Cohasset, Holbrook, Marion, Randolph and Stoughton.
William Parent, president and CEO of Randolph, said in the release that by joining a larger banking company with more extensive technology resources, the company can “meet the evolving needs of customers” via “greater access to digital banking tools.”
The pursuit of tech capabilities and scale has driven
In total, Hometown would have consolidated assets of approximately $4.4 billion after the deal is finalized and a branch network of 38 across Massachusetts and northeastern Connecticut.
This transaction would mark the sixth acquisition for Hometown in the last seven years. Most recently, in 2019,
The banks that Hometown buys continue to operate as standalone, locally managed operations, Sosik said.
“Each bank has deep roots in the neighborhoods they call home, so each can operate independently to harness its own local branding power while taking advantage of our extensive shared resources that take advantage of size, scale, and efficiency,” he said.
Sosik said Hometown would seek additional acquisitions.
