BOSTON, May 18, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Berkshire Hills
Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE: BHLB), the parent company of Berkshire Bank, a
purpose-driven community bank with locations primarily in New
England and New York, today
announced Berkshire's Exciting
Strategic Transformation (BEST), its plan to improve the customer
experience, deliver profitable growth, enhance stakeholder value
and strengthen its community impact.
"We want to get better before we get bigger and I'm confident
that our collective actions through BEST will move our company
forward with the passion, resolve and confidence to prove that
Berkshire's purpose-driven
community-dedicated banking will enhance value for all our
stakeholders," stated Nitin Mhatre,
CEO of Berkshire. In pursuit of its vision of being the
leading socially responsible and commercially successful
omni-channel community bank in the markets it serves, Berkshire will undertake a series of strategic
actions and new initiatives to build a better and stronger
company.
"Berkshire is charting its path
forward in a competitive, rapidly evolving banking environment. We
undertook our comprehensive strategic planning process involving
our board, executive management team, business line leaders and
employees throughout the company. The end result is BEST, which
will guide the actions we will take to transform our 175 year old
institution to greater heights," added Mhatre.
Over the next three years, Berkshire will look to aggressively transform
its performance and is targeting to:
- Increase Return on Average Tangible Common Equity (ROTCE) to
10%-12%
- Increase Return on Average Assets (ROAA) to 100-105 bps
- Increase Pre-Tax Pre-Provision Net Revenue (PPNR) by
$71-91 million from the 2020 adjusted
level
- Become a top quartile Net Promotor Score (NPS) bank in New
England
- Be recognized as a top quartile U.S. bank by leading
Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) raters
The Company plans to focus on three transformational pillars -
optimize, digitize, and enhance - which will collectively drive
performance improvements, enabling the achievement of its BEST
goals.
Optimize
- Berkshire will continue to
assess its branch footprint and delivery channels looking at
opportunities to strengthen the franchise while maintaining a
strong customer experience. It also plans to reduce its office
footprint by leveraging its existing work from home initiative. The
company expects to complete a number of other initiatives to
support its expense objectives including centralizing its
procurement function and pursing automation projects to improve
efficiencies. Berkshire also
will adjust its balance sheet to improve deposits and asset mix,
eliminate duplicative product offerings and optimize its pricing
structure.
Enhance
- Berkshire plans to grow select
business verticals where it sees the highest potential for future
growth including small business lending, asset-based lending,
wealth management and its MyBanker concierge banking platform. It
expects to build loan origination momentum through a correspondent
mortgage channel, consumer lending and development of new fin-tech
partnerships. The Company also plans to enhance its existing suite
of socially responsible financial solutions and develop new product
and service offerings.
Digitize
- Through BEST, Berkshire will
leverage technology to digitize operations, centralize data
management and eliminate manual processes and duplication by
investing in back-end technology behind all points of customer
contact. This will allow Berkshire
to strengthen its data warehouse to more efficiently and
effectively support its consumers' financial journeys as well as
allow for self-service options. Berkshire expects to roll out new digital
channels to better serve customers building off its successful,
highly rated digital account opening platform and will continue to
improve its mobile solutions to enhance customer satisfaction.
Berkshire conducted a virtual
presentation of its BEST plan on May 18,
2021 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern
Time. A telephone replay of the presentation will be
available through Tuesday, June 8,
2021 by dialing (800) 585-8367 and entering conference
ID 5785379. The full virtual presentation, including a
copy of the formal presentation deck and a transcript, will be
available on Berkshire's website
ir.berkshirebank.com for an extended period of time.
ABOUT BERKSHIRE HILLS
BANCORP
Headquartered in Boston, Berkshire Hills Bancorp is the parent
of Berkshire Bank, which operates 118 banking offices primarily in
New England and New York. The Bank is transforming what it
means to bank its neighbors socially, humanly and digitally to
empower the financial potential of people, families and businesses
in its communities as it pursues its vision of being the leading
socially responsible omni-channel community bank in the markets it
serves
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
This document contains
"forward-looking statements" within the meaning of section 27A of
the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and section 21E of the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. You can identify these
statements from the use of the words "may," "will," "should,"
"could," "would," "plan," "potential," "estimate," "project,"
"believe," "intend," "anticipate," "expect," "target," and similar
expressions. There are many factors that could cause actual results
to differ significantly from expectations described in the
forward-looking statements. For a discussion of such factors,
please see Berkshire's most recent
reports on Forms 10-K and 10-Q filed with the Securities and
Exchange Commission and available on the SEC's website
at www.sec.gov. You should not place undue reliance on
forward-looking statements, which reflect our expectations only as
of the date of this document. Berkshire does not undertake any obligation to
update forward-looking statements.
Investor Relations
Contact:
|
Media
Contacts:
|
Kevin Conn, SVP,
Investor Relations & Corporate Development
Email: KAConn2@berkshirebank.com
Tel: (617)
641-9206
David Gonci, Capital Markets
Director
Email: DGonci@berkshirebank.com
Tel: (413)
281-1973
|
John
Lovallo
Email: jlovallo@levick.com
Tel: (917)
612-8419
Sarah Sem
Email:
ssem@levick.com
Tel: (802)
310-7663
|
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SOURCE Berkshire Hills Bancorp, Inc.