October 01, 2009|By Hanah Cho | Hanah Cho,hanah.cho@baltsun.com
M&T Bank has laid off nearly half of Bradford Bank's 85 employees and closed four branches after acquiring the failed Towson bank amid a federal takeover in late August.
M&T, which had recently acquired Baltimore's Provident Bank, assumed all of Bradford's deposits and most of its assets in a purchase deal with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which seized Bradford after the bank could not find a buyer to rescue it from problem real estate loans. Bradford, founded in 1903, had $452 million in assets and $383 million in deposits as of June 30, according to regulatory filings.
As a result, Bradford became the second bank in Maryland to fail amid the collapse of the real estate market. In late January, regulators shut down Suburban Federal Savings Bank of Crofton. Suburban's deposits were sold to the Bank of Essex in Tappahannock, Va.
All of the 41 job losses were back-office positions, where equivalent jobs could not be found for the affected Bradford workers, said M&T spokesman Philip Hosmer. The employees' last day was Wednesday.
Unlike a typical acquisition, a bank that is seized by the government ceases to exist as an employer, Hosmer said. M&T was able to hire 44 former Bradford retail branch workers, including tellers, managers and customer service representatives, he said.
M&T did not pay severance to those laid off, but it offered them career services, including a two-day workshop on resume-writing and interviewing skills. M&T is also offering affected Bradford workers preferential consideration for 291 openings at the bank, including 114 in the mid-Atlantic region, Hosmer said.
Susanna Senft, a 32-year Bradford employee who was vice president of marketing and sales and among the 41 laid-off workers, said she understands that M&T made a business decision, even though she said the bank had indicated that it would retain most employees.
But the situation is still painful for longtime employees, who stayed loyal to the bank even when it was in trouble, she said.
"For a 106-year-old bank to be taken down, there were a lot of bad decisions, and it didn't have to happen," Senft said. "All the years of service are giving us nothing at all. ... We worked so hard."
Bob Evans, an information technology manager who joined Bradford in 1983, said he blames Bradford's top executives for the bank's failure.
Evans said he plans to look for volunteer opportunities and to spend time with his son, who's heading off to the Navy soon.
Of Bradford's nine branches, M&T completed the conversion of five locations - in Ellicott City, Towson, Patterson Park, Glen Burnie and Jacksonville - over the weekend, Hosmer said.
The remaining four - in White Marsh, Lutherville, Parkville and Pikesville - were closed as of Sept. 25.
Hosmer said M&T looked at its branch network and considered geographic overlap in making its decisions.
