Community Bank System hires Karaivanov to oversee non-banking units

Investment-banking veteran was Community’s financial advisor

DeWITT, N.Y. — Community Bank System, Inc. (NYSE: CBU) recently announced that it has hired an experienced investment banker who helped advise it on mergers and acquisitions (M&A).

The DeWitt–based banking company said Dimitar Karaivanov will be joining as its new executive VP of financial services and corporate development, effective June 4.

He will oversee Community Bank System’s non-banking subsidiaries and financial-services businesses and operations. That includes the employee-benefit services and institutional-trust businesses, the wealth management and investment-advisory units, and the insurance and risk-management businesses. These financial-services business lines account for about one-fourth of Community Bank System’s consolidated operating earnings, the banking company said in a news release. 

In addition, Karaivanov will have oversight of the company’s corporate-development efforts, which includes both the bank and financial-services businesses. 

Karaivanov has more than 15 years of experience as an investment banker for banks, other financial institutions, and fintech companies. He joins Community Bank System from Lazard Middle Market, where he served as a managing director and member of that firm’s financial institutions group (FIG) since June 2018. Prior to joining Lazard, Karaivanov was a managing director in FIG investment banking at RBC Capital Markets, where he counseled financial-services clients on more than 30 M&A transactions topping $20 billion in total deal value, according to his biography on the Lazard website. He also held positions in FIG investment banking at Janney Montgomery Scott and Bear, Stearns & Co.

Karaivanov advised Community Bank System on its more than $300 million acquisition of Merchants Bancshares, Inc., the largest statewide independent bank in Vermont, in a deal that was announced in October 2016 and closed in May 2017.

“We are delighted to have Dimitar join our executive management team. I have known and worked with him for the past 15 years and he is one the most strategic and astute financial thinkers I have ever worked with,” Mark E. Tryniski, Community Bank System’s president and CEO, said in the release. “… He brings a detailed understanding of the company’s strategy, business, culture, and people, which he has acquired by serving as our primary financial advisor over the last decade. He is the right person to lead our financial services businesses and will bring tremendous knowledge and experience to our merger and acquisition strategy, which continues to be an important element of our overall strategic objectives.”

Community Bank System operates more than 230 branches across upstate New York, northeastern Pennsylvania, Vermont, and western Massachusetts through its banking subsidiary, Community Bank, N.A. With assets of more than $13.9 billion, it is among the country’s 125 largest banking institutions. The company’s non-banking businesses include Community Bank Wealth Management Group, OneGroup NY, Inc., and Benefit Plans Administrative Services, Inc.