Community Bank to acquire Northeast Retirement Services for $140 million

DeWITT, N.Y. — Community Bank System, Inc. (NYSE: CBU) today it announced it will acquire Northeast Retirement Services, Inc. (NRS) — a privately held, Woburn, Massachusetts–based retirement-plan administrative services firm — for about $140 million in cash and stock.

After the deal closes, NRS will become a subsidiary of Benefit Plans Administrative Services, Inc. (BPAS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Community Bank System.

NRS provides plan accounting, transfer agency, fund administration, trust, and retirement plan services. BPAS is a national provider of employee-benefit related services, including defined contribution, actuarial and pension services, and collective investment fund, and institutional trust services, Community Bank said.

The combination of NRS and BPAS will create an organization with more than $80 million in annual revenue, over $50 billion in trust assets, and 3,800 retirement and other employee-benefit plan administration clients throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico, according to Community Bank.

The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of 2017, subject to certain shareholder and regulatory approvals. The boards of directors of both companies unanimously approved the deal.

“We are very excited to be partnering with NRS, a respected and growing provider of customized institutional trust services,” said Mark E. Tryniski, Community Bank System president and CEO, said in a news release. “The transaction will strengthen and complement our existing BPAS businesses, and represents an attractive and balanced utilization of our strong currency and existing surplus capital.”

For more information on this acquisition, check out the Dec. 12 issue of The Central New York Business Journal.

Contact Rombel at arombel@cnybj.com