CIT Group Inc., the business lender that last month agreed to buy OneWest Bank, has no plans to become a "serial acquirer," of financial firms, Chief Executive Officer John Thain said.
"The key is being big enough so that you can support all of the costs of regulation," Thain, 59, said today in an interview on Bloomberg Television with Erik Schatzker. At the same time, "there should be more consolidation in the industry," he said.
CIT said last month it planned to acquire OneWest, the Pasadena, California-based regional lender backed by billionaires John Paulson and George Soros. The $3.4 billion deal is among the industry's biggest since the financial crisis and, if approved by regulators, will create a bank with $67 billion in assets.
Thain said he expects New York-based CIT to have about $70 billion in assets in the next two years. CIT has no plans to become a universal bank or engage in trading, he said.
"That's not what CIT is good at," said Thain, who joined in 2010 to lead a turnaround after the firm went bankrupt following the credit crisis. "CIT is good at lending to middle-market companies, lending against collateral and managing pools of assets like airplanes and rail cars."
CIT gained 0.6 percent to $48.68 at 11:24 a.m. in New York, narrowing its decline this year to 6.6 percent.
