Partners Trust Financial Group Inc. of Utica, N.Y., announced Tuesday that its third-quarter net income fell 36%, to $2.3 million.
Partners attributed the bulk of the decline to one-time expenses related to its July 14 acquisition of the $2.2 billion-asset BSB Bancorp.
John Zawadzki, the $3.7 billion-asset company's president and chief executive, said in a conference call that the integration of BSB, of Binghamton, N.Y., is on schedule and that Partners Trust expects to realize $3 million of cost savings this year and another $3 million in 2005.
Though he did not give an earnings target, Mr. Zawadzki said that in 2005 Partners Trust will "demonstrate the power this organization has."
"The conversion to a full public company and the acquisition of BSB are truly franchise transforming events for Partners Trust," he said. "This is a different company than it was before the merger."
Partners Trust, which had been a mutual holding company, did a second-step conversion to finance the BSB acquisition, selling 14.9 million shares of stock.
