Just 14 months removed from a $691.2 million currency-trading scandal, Baltimore-based Allfirst Financial Inc. yesterday became the property of M&T Bank Corp. of Buffalo, N.Y.
Top executives of M&T and Allied Irish Banks PLC - Allfirst's parent in Dublin, Ireland - concluded the $3.1 billion deal during an early-morning meeting in New York yesterday, M&T officials said.
"Officials from both banks signed the papers this morning," C. Michael Zabel, vice president of corporate communications for M&T, said yesterday. "Allfirst is now the property of M&T Bank."
Yesterday also marked the last day of work for 346 Allfirst employees, including 204 in Maryland, who had been told in January that they would lose their jobs.
Under the terms of the agreement, AIB received 26.7 million shares of M&T common stock, plus $886 million in cash, in exchange for all of Allfirst's common stock. AIB ends up with a 22.5 percent stake in the merged company.
Under the deal - announced in September - M&T becomes the nation's 18th-largest bank, a leap of eight positions from its prior spot of 26th.
The merged M&T operates more than 700 bank branches and 1,600 automated teller machines in Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia, the bank said.
Had the deal been completed earlier, M&T said, the bulked-up bank would have made this year's Fortune 500, Fortune magazine's yearly ranking of the nation's 500 largest public companies.
With estimated revenue of $3.468 billion, M&T would have been No. 452 - just behind insurer Jefferson Pilot Corp. and ahead of USG Corp., according to a list compiled by M&T.
"Fortunately, M&T is a strong bank, a good bank," said Mary Louise Preis, Maryland's commissioner of financial regulation and the state's top banking regulator.
At least initially, Allfirst customers won't see much of a change, M&T said. The Allfirst name will remain on bank branches, and even on newly ordered checks, for the near term.
The only real hints of the buyout right now consist of small decals on the bank branches and subtitles on ATM screens, which identify Allfirst as a unit of M&T.
Instead of converting the Allfirst bank branch and ATM network in stages during the next several months, M&T intends to conduct the necessary behind-the-scenes work first, and then engineer the conversion all at once over the July 4th holiday weekend, according to Zabel, the M&T spokesman.
