The Interview: Robert G. Wilmers

Robert G. Wilmers, M&T Bank Corp.'s chairman and chief executive officer, has been leading the Buffalo, N.Y., bank's shopping spree in Maryland.

After gaining a foothold in the state with the purchase of Allfirst Financial Inc. in 2003 (the same year it bought the naming rights to the Ravens' stadium), M&T solidified its position by buying Baltimore-based Provident Bankshares Corp. five years later.

Then M&T took over two failed banks in Maryland amid the financial crisis, buying Bradford Bank and K Bank in the last two years. M&T also helped pay out insured deposits of a third failed bank, Ideal Federal Savings Bank in Baltimore, and gained some of Ideal Federal's customers.

Today, M&T's bank operations in Maryland include 207 branches and 2,900 employees, mostly in the greater Baltimore region. The bank has Maryland's second-largest deposit market share behind Bank of America.

Wilmers, 77, shows no signs of slowing down. In May, M&T completed its acquisition of Delaware's Wilmington Trust, the bank's second-largest partnership after the Allfirst deal.

When Wilmers took over M&T in 1983, it had $2 billion in assets; now it has more than $67 billion.

New York Times columnist Joe Nocera recently praised Wilmers for being a good banker and an executive "willing to tell harsh truths about banking" — including comments about larger banks' reliance on the trading of derivatives and on other complicated financial instruments that contributed to the crisis.

Last week, Wilmers spoke with The Baltimore Sun about the bank's business in Maryland, its latest acquisitions and how M&T fared during the financial crisis.

Given M&T's acquisition of local banks in recent years, what makes Maryland so attractive?

We acquired five banks in the last two years, and four of them I believe are Baltimore-centric. And the fifth one has a branch in Baltimore.

We find it a very attractive market. As a matter of fact, we have strong members of the management team here: Woody Collins [president and chief operating officer of M&T's Mid-Atlantic Division] and Mike Pinto [chief executive officer and chairman of M&T's Mid-Atlantic Division and vice chairman of M&T Bank Corp.'s board of directors]. …

Mike is the vice chairman of the bank, and the two of them run this part of the world for us. It was 26 percent of our earnings last year, 20 percent of our net profit, 18 percent of loans and 28 percent of our deposits. That's from Maryland, and Baltimore is the hub.

I read in your annual report that M&T is also the No. 1 Small Business Administration lender in Baltimore.

Not only in Baltimore, but also in Wilmington, Washington, D.C., [and] in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse [and] Philadelphia also.

We're the sixth-largest SBA lender in the country.

With the acquisitions here, were you looking to expand in Maryland, or did opportunities present themselves?

Opportunities present themselves. Three of the four, the FDIC presented them to us.

You could strategize all you want. The FDIC offers us several banks a week to buy and, obviously, we have no interest in banks that are in Arizona, Montana or Illinois. But when they're in our turf, we look at them seriously.

We love being in Maryland.

What is it about this market?

We consider it our community. And at this point, we're a multicommunity bank. There's no community more important to us than Baltimore.

Let's talk about Wilmington Trust. The bank has no retail branches in Maryland, but it has a wealth management and corporate services office in Baltimore. How do you see the acquisition benefiting Maryland?

Wilmington Trust, when it comes to wealth management and trust services, is more sophisticated than M&T.

And as I mentioned to you earlier, we're a community bank, and we like to provide the best services to our communities, so I think this business will be a big jump.

Hopefully, we'll be able to provide those people looking for those kinds of services a level of confidence that we didn't have before.

How has M&T been able to stay above the fray during the financial crisis and avoid the problems that Wall Street banks have gotten into?

I don't consider M&T … above the fray. If you're above the fray, that means you're not participating. We've been in the market every day. We haven't changed our policies.

Our policies are consistent but conservative. We've been more successful than other banks because we have a strong credit culture. …

A lot of banks have had trouble because the crisis has been very deep and very severe. Banks across the spectrum, small and large, have taken large losses. That's why in the last two and a half years, there's been some 250 to 300 banks that have gone belly up. Those are not Wall Street banks.

I think somewhere around 700 to 800 banks are what the FDIC calls troubled. To the extent we've done better than most banks across the spectrum is because of our credit culture.

Wall Street banks, you're really talking about a handful of banks. They've had good and bad things happen to them. It appears our credit culture has been better than most of those.

Do you think it's a problem that people like to group all banks together without differentiating between traditional commercial banks like M&T and Wall Street banks?

When you say people grouping banks together, for what purpose?

For the purpose of characterizing them, perhaps to the extent of blaming them for the financial crisis.

Let's analyze that. I saw a survey somewhere that said that bankers are the third most unpopular profession. Second place was politicians. First place was crooks.

So people feel strongly that bankers are bad people. Generally speaking, if you talk to individuals they all have a different reason why [they think] bankers are bad. …

If you talk to people about their bank or their banker, most of the time they'll have good things to say. …

When it comes to why do people dislike banks, there have been a few banks … that you call Wall Street banks that sold a lot of derivatives with an alphabet soup of names.

The result is a lot of people got mortgages. … Because of fortunate circumstances, they're in trouble today. A lot of trouble was caused by the alphabet soups that were issued. As a result, we have two million in foreclosure, and another two million that will likely be under foreclosure this year.

A lot of people are suffering, and people say that's the banks. Those banks are really very, very few.

hanah.cho@baltsun.com