Eastern's Bob Rivers on $500 million HarborOne purchase: ‘This deal is really personal for me'
'Brockton was always my city [growing up, so] this deal is really personal for me,' said Rivers, Eastern's executive chair. 'I went into Brockton way more often than I would go to Boston. … To come back on this one ties a lot of things together from 40 years ago.'
Of course, that's not the reason Rivers is making this deal. Acquiring HarborOne helps Eastern build its market share in the Boston metro area as Rivers and his team seek to move ahead of Santander to become the third-biggest bank in the region after market leader Bank of America and runner up Citizens Bank. Eastern won't get there with this deal, but it's getting closer.
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While HarborOne is a much smaller bank, at roughly one-quarter of Eastern's size ($5.7 billion in assets versus $25 billion), HarborOne has a much larger mortgage selling business than Eastern. And Eastern gets its first retail branches in Rhode Island through this deal.
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Eastern's first foray in Brockton occurred more than a decade ago, with the purchase of The Community Bank. Following that deal, Rivers became involved in the city's business community and got to know HarborOne chief executive Joe Casey and his predecessor, Jim Blake.
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Rivers and Casey stayed in touch over the years, and started talking about a merger a few months ago. They stuck with it despite the stock market's recent volatility. (Casey and one other HarborOne director will join Eastern's board of directors as the deal closes, likely around the end of this year.)
Rivers started working on this deal around six months after
Rivers concedes he would have preferred to wait a little longer before lining up another major deal like this. But opportunities don't come up often in this region, even amid the flurry of acquisitions the local banking sector is experiencing. Rivers believed he needed to strike when he could.
'When you get that opportunity, you've got to do everything you can to make it happen,' Rivers said. 'Once they're gone, they're gone.'
This is an installment of our weekly Bold Types column about the movers and shakers on Boston's business scene.
Jon Chesto can be reached at
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