Community Bank System acquires Minnesota benefits-administration company

DeWITT, N.Y. — Community Bank System, Inc. (NYSE: CBU) announced Thursday that it has acquired Fringe Benefits Design of Minnesota, Inc. (FBD), a provider of retirement-plan administration and benefit-consulting services with offices in Minnesota and South Dakota.

FBD will become a subsidiary of Benefit Plans Administrative Services, Inc. (BPAS), a subsidiary of Community Bank System. No financial terms of the acquisition were disclosed.

BPAS, through its various subsidiaries, provides daily valuation, actuarial and employee-benefit consulting, cafeteria plan, and institutional trust services on a national scale, from offices in Utica, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Houston, Boston, and Puerto Rico.

FBD was incorporated in 1990 after merging two Minneapolis–area administration firms, per its website.

The acquisition of FBD is expected to give BPAS a profile of more than $110 million in annual revenue, administration of more than 510,000 retirement-plan participant accounts, 4,200 employer clients, about $13 billion in defined-contribution plan assets on its daily valuation system, and about $110 billion of total assets in trust, the banking company said.

“The transaction will strengthen and complement our existing BPAS businesses, and represents an attractive opportunity to expand our benefits business in the Midwest,” Community Bank System President and CEO Mark E. Tryniski said in a statement. “We are delighted to welcome the entire FBD team to the Community Bank System organization and look forward to the future of the combined company.”

Community Bank System operates more than 225 branches across upstate New York, northeastern Pennsylvania, Vermont, and western Massachusetts through its banking subsidiary, Community Bank, N.A. With assets of more than $14.6 billion, the DeWitt–based company is among the country’s 125 largest banking institutions.