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Article Excerpt
OPERATOR: Greetings and welcome to First Niagara's special transaction announcement. (Operator Instructions). As a reminder this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Mr. John Koelmel, President and Chief Executive Officer for First Niagara. Thank you, Mr. Koelmel, you may begin.
JOHN KOELMEL, PRESIDENT, CEO, FIRST NIAGARA FINANCIAL GROUP, INC.: Good morning everyone. I appreciate you taking the time to hear firsthand from us what we need to be a very, very exciting and proud day for First Niagara.
As always, Mike Harrington is on the horn with me, and he will help walk you through some of the numbers and details of transaction. And as always, the customary disclaimer is there that we will provide some forward-looking views and commentary, so I will refer you to our customary SEC disclosures.
Coming back to the obvious, as I have already said, this is a terrific day for First Niagara, and one we're very thrilled, excited and proud to bring to all of our shareholders. And be able to stretch our wings and make our presence felt in Western Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh and the area in particular.
Picking up 57 branches, more importantly, 500 terrific and energized employees that are there today. Being able to add to the workforce and supplement the team here as well as on the ground in Upstate New York at an incredibly challenging time is a wonderful message and a wonderful opportunity for us.
It brings us to a market that we think, as I will reference in a couple of minutes, is one that looks a lot like where we already do business, and one where we think our value proposition and our strategy will continue to play well. It gives us the opportunity to leverage the competitive strengths that we have developed and enhance the strategic position that we believe we have worked hard to achieve, and incrementally benefit from these very, very challenging times.
And do so in a way that certainly we think opportunistic and economically beneficial for the organization and our shareholders. Michael will walk you through the details in a bit, but we think we have been able to enter a new market, do so in a meaningful substantive way, but at a very nice reward and economic benefit for the organization going forward.
If you will flip to slide 4, you will see depicted the footprint as it will now be framed as we move forward. Those of you that are familiar with us, you what know our story is. We reach across Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Albany. This about takes us obviously down into Erie and Pittsburgh in particular, and well positions us to further penetrate those markets, deepen the relationship and the strength of the position we already have. And as I referenced upfront, leverage the strategic strengths that we bring.
Pittsburgh, Eire look a lot like Upstate New York. The demographics, how you slice and dice it, looks a lot like home. And it's an area that we're confident we will be very comfortable with, and more importantly customers will be very comfortable with us.
And we know, as you will see on slide 5, that we're going to come in with a nice market share and a nice platform to build from. We're used to competing against the big guys. We certainly have a lot of respect for PNC and what they've done, and obviously do very well. But are also very confident in our ability to compete effectively against any competition, deem ourselves to be a relatively sophisticated operation and organization, bring a robust suite of products and services. And having to compete now against PNC, similar to what we do across Upstate New York with the larger players, is not at all daunting for us, and in fact is a very energizing opportunity.
Slide 6. I think if you asked Mike and I what makes this deal a home run for First Niagara, we would both direct you to this slide. The fact that more than $3 billion of cash is coming with this transaction, one beyond improving dramatically the ratios that are relevant, and one in particular, loan to deposit that you see depicted here.
I think far more importantly, as all of you are aware, we raised $100 million of capital on our own the tail end of September, first of October last year. Participated in Treasury CPP program to the tune of almost another $200 million. And been very open and very public about our intent to leverage that collective investment 8 to 10 to 1 and add $2.5 billion, $3 billion to our balance sheet via organic growth.
This provides instantly the funding and support to do that, and makes it all the easier for us to more nimbly and flexibly manage our balance sheet and grow our profile as we move forward.
So while the economics are compelling and strong on multiple fronts, there's no question the significant add to liquidity here. So as I look at it from where I sit, a tremendous strategic opportunity. One that significantly enhances our liquidity position and the flexibility that we now have to further drive the growth engine that we have in place, and do so at...
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