How to bring employees together around culture before and after a merger

The topic of mergers and acquisitions has been in the news quite a bit lately (thanks, Elon!). At M&T Bank, we’ve also spent quite a bit of time over the past year and half pondering a deal that would dramatically expand our footprint.

In February of 2021, we announced our intention to acquire People’s United Bank — a company with a long and storied history of community banking — a company that seemed, well, a lot like us.

Common cultures, complementary footprints

The commonalities between the two companies were a core component of the deal. These were two banks with similar roots and similar values. Indeed, it seemed People’s United was our mirror image– they represented to Bridgeport and  Boston what M&T meant to Buffalo and to Baltimore. There were even reflections that you could “cover up the nametag” and not know if you were talking to an M&T employee or someone from PUB (as we came to affectionately call them).

After a protracted period of “getting to know you,” our deal received regulatory approval in March of this year, and we finally came together as one stronger, better version of M&T Bank on April 1 (seriously…our official day one was on April Fools’ Day. You can’t make this stuff up).