NBT Q3 earnings slide as company wraps up Salisbury acquisition

NORWICH, N.Y. — NBT Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ: NBTB), parent company of NBT Bank, N.A., reported a profit decline for the third quarter due to costs related to its acquisition of Salisbury Bancorp, Inc. finalized on Aug. 11.

The banking company produced net income of $24.6 million, or 54 cents a share, for the quarter ending Sept. 30, down 37 percent from $39 million, or 90 cents per share, for the same quarter last year. Acquisition costs for the quarter totaled $7.9 million.

NBT’s net interest income was $94.9 million in the third quarter, up nearly 4 percent from a year prior. Non-interest income grew more than 8 percent to $40.2 million for the third quarter when compared to the same period last year.

Total loans came in at $9.67 billion at the end of the third quarter, up from $8.15 billion on Dec. 31, 2022. Total deposits increased to $11.4 billion from $9.5 billion during the same period.

NBT President/CEO John H. Watt, Jr. was upbeat about the banking company’s performance during an Oct. 25 conference call with investors and the media.

“It was a very active quarter at NBT,” he said during the call. Watt noted the Salisbury integration is substantially complete. “We welcomed over 40,000 new customers, 141 new colleagues, and we brought 13 additional branches onto our platform, allowing us to add scale in Connecticut and to expand south into the Hudson Valley.”

With those branches, and the bank’s strong presence along the state’s “chip corridor” from Syracuse to Albany and down into the Hudson Valley, NBT is positioned for future strategic growth, Watt contended.

He listed activity already happening along the corridor including noting that Micron filed an application with the U.S. Department of Commerce for grants and other support under the CHIPS Act, Advanced Micro Devices opened research and development facilities in Fishkill and Rochester, respectively, and the Albany Nanotech Complex was designated by the federal government as a center for workforce training.

Later in the call, analyst Matthew Breese, a managing director at Stephens Inc., a Florida–based financial-services firm, asked Watt about the chip corridor and whether Watt sees the region becoming like Silicon Valley.

While he won’t say upstate New York is the next Silicon Valley, Watt said the area is poised for a transformation “unlike one we have seen in many, many years in upstate New York.” It means population growth, job growth, increased salaries, and more college graduates staying in the area, he added.

“The NBT footprint sits right on top of that,” Watt said, and he expects NBT’s retail, commercial-lending, wealth, and insurance businesses will see big opportunities.

NBT Bancorp had total assets of $13.83 billion as of Sept. 30. The company primarily operates through NBT Bank, which has 153 branches across New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and Connecticut. It also operates EPIC Retirement Plan Services, a national benefits-administration firm based in Rochester, and NBT Insurance Agency, LLC, a full-service insurance agency based in Norwich.