Nearly two years after it expanded into Maryland with its complex acquisition of Leeds Federal Savings Bank of Baltimore, Northwest Bancorp in Warren, Pa., has finally put its signs on Leeds' branches.
Northwest, which bought Leeds' corporate parent for $43 million in January 2003, merged the thrift's two offices into its $5.8 billion-asset Northwest Savings Bank on Sept. 13.
The deal, announced in August 2001, took longer than usual to close because both Northwest and the $455 million-asset Leeds were mutual holding companies. The hybrid depositor-investor form of ownership created a host of thorny accounting issues that had to be sorted out, delaying both the sale and the integration.
The two offices are Northwest's first operations in Maryland. William J. Wagner, its president and chief executive, said the company will probably expand there but plans to wait at least 12 months before making the next move.
"We want to run those two offices as Northwest Savings Bank for a year or more before we do anything else," Mr. Wagner said in an interview last week. "We think it's safer to stick our toe in the market" first.
But he said he likes what he has seen of the Maryland market. The region around Baltimore is growing faster than Northwest's other markets, in Pennsylvania, upstate New York, and northeastern Ohio, he said. And with the growing number of southern Pennsylvania residents who commute to work in Baltimore, there is a "natural connection."
"We feel pretty good about our opportunities there," Mr. Wagner said.
The former Leeds offices are far from the rest of Northwest's branches. The closest are those along the Maryland border in York County, Pa., about 50 miles away.
Richard D. Weiss, an analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC in Philadelphia, said Northwest was smart to get Leeds, which he called a "quiet, well-run institution" that may well set the stage for further growth in Maryland for the company.
"They could open de novo branches or acquire another institution," he said Thursday. "There are a lot of growth opportunities, and Maryland is certainly growing faster than" Northwest's Pennsylvania markets.
Northwest named Gordon C. "Bud" Clark as senior executive of its Maryland region. He had been Leeds' president and CEO.
"We are very pleased to continue serving customers using the Northwest brand," Mr. Clark said in a Sept. 13 press release.
"I will remain actively involved as the managing officer in the Maryland market, and our employees will remain focused on our customers' needs," he said. "We look forward to the next steps in our evolution and the expansion of our capabilities to customers in the Baltimore area."
