On the heels of BB&T’s arrival via Susquehanna Bancshares, another leading national bank is introducing itself to Chester County and the Keystone State. KeyCorp announced an acquisition of First Niagara Financial Group last week for $4.1 billion, according to a Philadelphia Business Journal report.
First Niagara owns more than a dozen branches in Chester County, particularly in Downingtown and Pottstown.
KeyCorp, though, may shake up the local banking strategy, the article said. It shares a business focus with BB&T — big business, that is.
“They want to sell products to larger companies,” Rafferty Capital Markets’ Richard Bove said in the report. “They are not going to replicate what First Niagara did. The acquisition would be a bust. Key has a different approach. It sells multiple products with industry-specific focus.”
Bove also thinks the KeyCorp deal was motivated by First Niagara’s upstate New York locations and that the Philly branches could be dealt to another new owner, but fellow analyst Sameer Gokhale of Janney Montgomery Scott sees value here too.
“What’s attractive about Philadelphia is the large number of affluent consumers for its wealth management business, which has become more important for banks like KeyCorp because it is fee-related income,” he said in the article.
The driving force for KeyCorp’s moves is Beth Mooney, the pioneering first woman CEO among America’s top 20 banks.
Read more about Mooney, KeyCorp and First Niagara in the Philadelphia Business Journal here.
