Market Growth: Rhode Island-based Washington Trust expands in New Haven
PHOTO | Michelle Tuccitto Sullo
Washington Trust’s growing offices in New Haven are at 265 Church St., or One Century Tower.
While The Washington Trust Co. has long been active in Connecticut, the Westerly, Rhode Island-based bank is putting more resources into the Nutmeg State, with a New Haven expansion planned this summer.
The bank, founded in 1800, gets its name from George Washington, and says it is the oldest community bank in the nation and the first to print Washington’s likeness on currency.
Today, it has 24 branches, with most in Rhode Island. In Connecticut, it has one branch, in Mystic. It also has a presence in Glastonbury, where it has had a mortgage office since 2011. In 2015, it acquired the investment management firm Halsey Associates in New Haven, giving it a wealth management office in the Elm City for the past seven years.
Halsey was recently rebranded as “Washington Trust Wealth Management,” which operates out of 265 Church St. in New Haven.
For the bank’s latest expansion, it is opening a new, 1,435-square-foot commercial lending office this summer at 265 Church St., on the same 10th floor as the existing wealth management business. The office will be staffed by five current employees and two new hires.
The bank does business throughout Connecticut, and its leaders say the New Haven and Hartford markets represent strong growth opportunities.
Washington Trust Bancorp Inc., the publicly-traded holding company of Washington Trust, reports having $4.3 billion in total loans, $5.1 billion in deposits, $7.5 billion of wealth management assets under administration, and $5.8 billion in assets. Its first quarter profits totaled $16.5 million, or 94 cents per diluted share, down from $20.5 million, or $1.17 per diluted share, in the year-ago period.
As of Dec. 31, about 39% of the bank’s commercial real estate loans and 8% of its 2021 mortgage volume was from Connecticut.
In one recent example of the bank’s local commercial activity, earlier this year it provided commercial financing to Hartford-based parking company Propark Mobility.
New Haven Biz recently chatted with two top Washington Trust leaders to learn more about the bank’s future in Greater New Haven and Connecticut.
Edward “Ned” O. Handy III is chairman of the board of directors and CEO for Washington Trust Bancorp, and he leads more than 600 employees working throughout Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts. Handy has been in his present role since 2018, and his career has included stints at Citizens Financial Group and Fleet Financial Group.
Mark K.W. Gim is president and chief operating officer with Washington Trust, and he has been with the bank for nearly three decades.
Q. Tell us about Washington Trust’s planned expansion in Connecticut.
A. Handy: We have been active in Connecticut for quite some time, on the wealth side, on the mortgage side and on the commercial real estate side. A little less so on the commercial and industrial or C&I lending side.
We intend to expand all of those. We have committed to opening an office for our commercial lending business in New Haven, adjacent to our wealth office, this summer.
Q. What is the plan for this New Haven location and why there?
A. Handy: We think it is going to open about July 1. Through all the time we have been in the market, we have developed some great partnerships between our wealth business, our mortgage business and commercial business.
To have the commercial team sitting next to the wealth team just promotes cross referral, and enables us to take care of customers that much better.
We think a physical presence in the marketplace sends the right signal and is the right strategy for us. It just makes us a little bit more part of the fabric.
Q. Do you foresee additional Connecticut expansion?
A. Handy: At this point, it is just the New Haven office. They will service the entire state. We think it is a good central location for where our footprint is, where our people are, and it is a strong market, one that we have been active in for a while.
Q. How have the bank’s real estate needs been evolving overall? Any branch closures?
A. Handy: We haven’t closed any branches and don’t have any plans to. Our branch network is very efficient already. We have no need to even think about that.
In fact, we are adding branches in the Rhode Island footprint. [Closing branches] is a strategy that some of the larger banks have used for efficiency where they’ve got duplication. It is just not our reality. We have no plans to consolidate.
Q. What kind of investment is Washington Trust making in technology?
A. Gim: The main thing we want to do with technology is to improve convenience for the customer to transact business, move money between accounts or for loan applications. Also, we want to provide quick access to experienced senior bankers who can help understand and then solve the clients’ financial needs.
We want to use technology to speed things up and get access to people, but not to substitute that human connection.
Q. How has the pandemic impacted the bank?
A. Handy: We have come through it very well from a credit standpoint. Our customer base is very much intact. We are in the process of returning to [in-person] work, though not all the way there. We have been patient and practical and prudent about how we do it.
Flexibility is going to be critical. We envision a hybrid workplace well into the future and maybe forever. At this point we are feeling our way through it like everyone else. We are keeping safety, health and customer service at the forefront.
Q. Who are your typical business customers?
A. Handy: We have a lot of different types of customers on the real estate side. They tend to be specialists in multifamily, industrial, hospitality or retail. On the retail front, today we are focused more on net retail, so the CVS, Walgreen standalone single tenant, or food-anchored strip center kind of retail.
On the C&I side, we have a well-developed healthcare book, which is more assisted living and memory care, and dentist and physician practices.
We have manufacturers and distributors, service companies, law firms, contractors. Retail like Dunkin’ Donuts franchises. That is a typical community-oriented bank and that’s what we are. We do residential mortgages and home equity loans.
We have been involved in some of the downtown New Haven real estate renovations and multifamily apartment projects.
Q. Do you foresee expansion into different areas of business — such as cannabis?
A. Handy: It is a good question and one that’s on everybody’s mind. We have no plans to, at this point.
But when the regulatory environment is aligned and it is blessed by our regulators and entirely appropriate to do so, it is an area of business we should be focused on and will be.
At this point, we haven’t done anything in the cannabis space.
Q. Would the bank be interested in a future M&A deal?
A. Handy: We would be interested under the right conditions, at the right time, at the right price, for the right reasons, to grow through M&A.
No one would call us super acquisitive. We haven’t bought a bank in over a decade. But if that became an opportunity and made sense, that may be a way we could expand in Connecticut, or anywhere else for that matter.
At this point it is organic growth and doing exactly what we are doing in Connecticut — building brand awareness and presence.
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