Filed by: M&T Bank Corporation
Pursuant to Rule 425 under the Securities Act of 1933
and deemed filed pursuant to Rule 14a-12
under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934
Subject Company: Peoples United Financial, Inc. (Commission File No.: 001-33326)
The following is a transcript of an interview with René Jones, CEO of M&T Bank Corporation (M&T), which took place on CNBC Closing
Bell on April 21, 2021. A video replay of this interview was made available to M&T employees on the companys internal website on April 23, 2021.
Host: M&T Bank is off to a strong year, the bank out with its Q1 earnings this week beating out both the top and bottom line, also noted strong revenue
growth in its residential mortgage banking and trust business. The regional bank has outperformed the broader market this year running around 20 percent the S&Ps at 11. Joining us in a Closing Bell exclusive is M&T Bank CEO René
Jones. Very good to see you, thanks for joining us.
René: Thanks.
Host: I wanted to start, if I may, with some sort of macro outlook points. Early in the show we had some comments from Jamie Dimon today who seemed to suggest
that the positives of a growing strong economy would outweigh the risks of higher inflation and higher rates. Is that something you agree with?
René: I think yeah. Right now I think weve got to get our economy back on firm footing and of course weve seen a nice rebound across many
of the segments. But whats unique about the pandemic is its affected certain segments in an extraordinary way like restaurants and travel and entertainment. Youve got a lot of low-wage
individuals that are still out of jobs there, so I think for now the stimulus, the monetary policy has actually put us in a place were going to see a very robust recovery. You know, there likely will be inflation, the question is, is it
transitory, or does it actually last for a very long time? I think thats yet to be seen so I would agree.
Host: I wanted to ask about the
acquisition of Peoples, and what, exactly, the rationale is there, how important scale is at the moment and what youve done on the acquisition front?
René: Well, you know, this is about, in my career this is about our 25th acquisition. Ive
been here almost 30 years. But in particular, part of our success has been about having a local scale, and being really a dominant player in the markets that we serve not only from a depository share perspective but from an ability to immerse our
employees into those environments. If you think about it, when we combine the two firms, were going to end up with the 11th-largest U.S. bank, commercial bank holding company. But maybe more
importantly, its going to be concentrated in the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast. So if you think about that, well have the most dense franchise in terms of distribution with just under 1,200
branches, 2,000 ATMs. I think the only institution would be Bank of America that would have more. So that local density is really, really important to our operating model.