Coatesville’s 106-year-old Presence Bank acquired in $55M deal
The combined company will have about $3 billion in assets.
A Pennsylvania-based bank has acquired the parent company of Coatesville’s Presence Bank, giving the two combined assets of about $3 billion.
The $54.9 million deal was first announced in July and received regulatory and board approvals in December. It closed Monday.
PB Bankshares, the holding company for Presence Bank, has been merged into Norwood Financial Corp., the holding company for Wayne Bank.
“We are pleased to welcome PB Bankshares’ shareholders, customers and employees to our Norwood family,” Jim Donnelly, president and CEO of Norwood, said in Monday’s announcement. “We expect this combination will allow us to offer expanded products and services to the communities in our combined market areas.”
Norwood’s Wayne Bank, based in Honesdale, had $2.4 billion in assets at the acquisition. It began operations in 1995 and grew to 15 offices in Northeastern Pennsylvania and 12 in the Southern Tier of New York.
PB Bankshares had $467 million in assets from its Presence Bank when the deal closed.
Presence Bank first opened in 1919 in Coatesville, Chester County, as Coatesville Federal Savings & Loan Association, and in 2021 was renamed Presence Bank.
Over the years, the bank added branches in Oxford, Chester County, and in New Holland and Georgetown, both in Lancaster County. Presence Bank also has an administrative office in Lancaster and a loan office in Harrisburg.
Norwood has said the strategic combination allows the company to expand its footprint “into higher growth markets in Central and Southeastern Pennsylvania” while “enhancing Presence Bank’s capacity to provide exceptional service and solutions to its existing customers.”
Janak M. Amin, president, CEO, and director of PB Bankshares, is now executive vice president and chief operating officer for Norwood and Wayne Bank.
“We will be able to provide more products and services to our customers given Wayne Bank’s strength in retail banking,” Amin said.
He added that Wayne Bank’s larger capital base will allow Presence Bank to “take better care of commercial customers with growing needs and the increased lending limit will allow us to retain and attract more customers.”