Butterfield remains acquisitive ‘but only in certain markets’
Butterfield continues to scan the market for possible acquisitions — but only in jurisdictions where the Bermudian-based bank feels comfortable doing business.
Speaking on an earnings call with analysts yesterday, Michael Collins, Butterfield’s chairman and chief executive, said: “We've been in offshore banking a long time, and so we have very strong views about the differentiation between offshore jurisdictions.
“We're very comfortable banking in Bermuda, Cayman and Guernsey and Jersey. I would doubt you would see us go beyond that footprint because we need to know the markets that we're banking and they're all very different.”
He added: “On the trust side, we're also very comfortable in Bermuda, Cayman, Bahamas, Guernsey, potentially Jersey, Geneva and certainly Singapore. So those are the markets we’ll continue to focus on.
“We’d like to continue to grow trust in Singapore. We are quite big in Bermuda already. We could — there’s room for expansion in trust in Cayman and the Channel Islands. So, we'll keep focused on that.”
Mr Collins said: “We have gone through an extensive process with a potential trust acquisition. But at the end, it came down to we weren’t comfortable with one of the particular jurisdictions from a risk appetite perspective.
“So, we did quite a bit of work there, and we continue having constructive conversations across the board.”
Michael Schrum, president and group chief risk officer, added: “If we do get a sizeable trust acquisition, we expect that we would be able to fund it with excess capital at the moment. So that’s a positive. And there are some targets out there that we’ve been pursuing for quite a while.
“So, it’s kind of a wait and see. Nothing to report at the moment, but good dialogue going on.”
On Tuesday, Butterfield reported net income for the third quarter of 2024 of $52.7 million, or $1.16 per diluted common share.
That compares with net income of $50.6 million, or $1.09 per diluted common share, for the previous quarter and $48.7 million, or $0.99 per diluted common share, for the third quarter of 2023.
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