Customers brings new name, familiar faces

STICKING AROUND: Steven J. Issa became New England market president at Customers Bank when his new employer acquired Flagstar’s commercial-banking business in the region. / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS
STICKING AROUND: Steven J. Issa became New England market president at Customers Bank when his new employer acquired Flagstar’s commercial-banking business in the region. / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS

There’s a new financial presence in Rhode Island, Customers Bank, with some familiar faces, including Steve Issa, the bank’s New England market president.
The downtown Providence office in the Textron building is the New England headquarters for the Wyomissing, Pa.-based bank. A second regional office is located in Boston.
But the offices, the nine Providence employees, seven Boston employees, and even the 40 or so commercial customers, are the same as the ones Flagstar Bank had before its New England division was acquired by Customers Bank on March 29.
“We even have the same phone numbers. That’s why our customers didn’t have any trouble reaching us,” said Issa, a long-time presence in Rhode Island banking who officially assumed his new post on April 29.
Issa was president of Flagstar’s New England market in February when Customers Bank announced the acquisition of all of Flagstar’s commercial banking business in the region for approximately $149 million.
The clients in Customers Bank’s New England commercial loan portfolio are about divided between Providence and Boston, said Issa.
“They’re manufacturers, professional firms, service companies, distributors and some real estate developers,” Issa said.
Like many financial institutions, Customers Bank is aiming for an increasing slice of middle-market customers. The Providence and Boston division, called the New England Private and Commercial Lending Team, is in the thick of the competition.
“They’ve been very active in the last 30 days,” said Dick Ehst, president of Customers Bank and Customers Bankcorp, who is based at the bank’s Pennsylvania offices outside Philadelphia.
“The whole focus is to become the bank of choice for what we refer to as middle-market companies, typically from $10 million in sales up to $150 million in sales,” Ehst said. That middle market is a popular potential customer-base for many banks. The stiff competition means the regional team has a critical role in building relationships with customers.
“It’s all about the talent you hire,” said Ehst. “We’re terribly excited that the whole team from Flagstar’s commercial banking and private banking units has come onboard with us. … Steve is a remarkable leader and he’s put together a remarkable team.”
A substantial part of acquiring and retaining customers is in establishing relationships, said Christine Pratt, a senior analyst for the Aite Group, which does research on technologies for the banking industry.
“The chairman and CEO of Customers Bank, Jay Sidhu, who was the former head of Sovereign Bank, certainly has strong ties to New England,” Pratt said “And he has already established one brand in the Northeast with Sovereign.”
Sidhu worked with Issa at Sovereign. Sidhu resigned as CEO of Sovereign Bancorp Inc. in October 2006 after a protracted conflict with Sovereign investors. Sidhu also set in motion the process through which Banco Santander S.A. acquired Sovereign.
With $3.2 billion in assets, Customers Bank is a good-sized community bank, said Pratt.
“It also looks as though they have aspirations to leverage the business loans into a strong private-banking franchise, or wealth management, in Rhode Island and this will be its foundation,” said Pratt.
Customers Bancorp, Inc., the bank holding company for Customers Bank, has locations in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. The bank has one pending acquisition, CMS Bancorp Inc. in White Plains, N.Y. •

No posts to display