HCBK (MM)

PARAMUS, N.J., Jan. 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Ronald E. Hermance, Jr., Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Hudson City Bancorp, Inc. ("Hudson City") (NASDAQ:HCBK), the largest savings bank headquartered in New Jersey and the second largest thrift in the United States, was recently named Banker of the Year by Jim Cramer of Cramer's nationally syndicated Mad Money program on CNBC. The award follows the Bank being named The Best-Managed Bank of 2007 by Forbes. According to Forbes, "Bank revenue has grown an average 17% over the past five years. Hudson City's stock, up 22% over the past three years, easily beat its fellow thrifts, down 23%." In naming Hermance as recipient of the inaugural George Bailey Banker of the Year Award, (named after the movie character in It's a Wonderful Life) Cramer noted, "Hudson City is the only bank that we're recommending...Even as the financial sector continues to reel from the subprime-mortgage loan crisis, one bank is showing others how to do business the old fashioned way. Hermance runs a lean, mean banking machine." Hudson City serves New York, New Jersey and Connecticut and has stayed away from the speculative markets of Florida and California. "Hudson City operates much more efficiently than its competitors," said Hermance during an interview with Cramer. "On average, the top banks in the country spend 55 cents of every dollar on overhead costs while Hudson City spends 25.6 cents. The higher efficiency enables the Bank to give our customers better deposit yields, lower fees, and competitive mortgage rates," said Hermance. "The in-born efficiency is not something any bank can create now," he said. "It has to have occurred 20 to 25 years ago, with getting the right kind of lease, employees, pensions, everything. You have to make that kind of investment years ahead of time." According to Hermance, total assets for the Bank have consistently grown from $8.5 billion to over $42 billion since first going public in 1999. Residential mortgage lending grew at a compounded annual rate of 24% over the same time period and the average deposits per branch of $124 million is 80% higher than the national average of $69 million of FDIC insured banks. In addition to the Jim Cramer Mad Money and Forbes awards, Hudson City was added to the S&P 500 Index in February 2007. It also received top rankings in the Wall Street Journal's 2007 Annual Shareholder Performance Scoreboard. The Wall Street Journal cited Hudson City as the number two bank in the country as ranked by a five-year average return of 30.29% and the New York Times has recognized Hudson City's strong performance as well. On September 25, 2007, Hudson City was cited as the top-performing bank in the S&P 500 over the past year with a 15.6% return. Hudson City Savings Bank, among the top fifty banks in the United States by asset size, is recognized as The Most Efficient Bank in the country. This enables Hudson City to deliver significant values to customers in the form of higher deposit yields, competitive mortgage rates, and lower fees. Hudson City, the largest savings bank headquartered in New Jersey, also serves customers throughout the surrounding metropolitan area with branches located in Westchester, Fairfield, Putnam, and Rockland counties, as well as in Long Island, Staten Island, and the New Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia. Deposit accounts at Hudson City are FDIC insured to the maximum allowed by law. This release may contain certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and may be identified by the use of such words as "may," "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "should," "plan," "estimate," "predict," "continue," and "potential" or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. Examples of forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, estimates with respect to the financial condition, results of operations and business of Hudson City Bancorp that are subject to various factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from these estimates. Any or all of the forward-looking statements in this release and in any other public statements made by Hudson City may turn out to be wrong. They can be affected by inaccurate assumptions Hudson City might make or by known or unknown risks and uncertainties. Consequently, no forward-looking statement can be guaranteed. Hudson City does not intend to update any of the forward-looking statements after the date of this release or to conform these statements to actual events. DATASOURCE: Hudson City Bancorp, Inc. CONTACT: Susan Munhall, Investor Relations of Hudson City Bancorp, Inc., +1-201-967-8290, Web site: http://www.hcbk.com/

Copyright