Update: In response to M&T Bank hurting Bridgeport people financially, Mayor Joe Ganim announced on Tuesday he will respond in kind, pulling $30 million in accounts from People’s United Bank following disclosure by its buyer it will cut 661 jobs in Connecticut’s largest city.
People’s United depository relationships with the city include a capital account and tax collections account that drives millions to the bank.
“We are taking out money because we don’t trust them and they have not shown themselves to be responsible,” Ganim told Hearst Connecticut Media. “We met with them when the merger was first announced and they did not leave us with the impression that anything like this would happen. This is going to have a huge impact on our community and it makes no sense.”
Ganim added: “People’s Bank has been invisible for decades in this community and it sounds like we’re going to get more of the same from M&T.”
Original story: Mayor Joe Ganim is now weighing in on the purging of more than 600 Bridgeport jobs at city institution People’s United Bank absorbed in a $7.6 billion purchase by M&T Bank that is awaiting final regulatory approval in October.
In a letter to Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, Ganim urges state support to pressure M&T officials who misrepresented their jobs commitment when the merger was announced in February. That’s a major shift from the bank’s corporate cry: “We Understand What’s Important.”
Ganim declares if the bank doesn’t make good on promises, he will reevaluate the city’s financial relationship with the banks.
Mayor Ganim plays hardball with M&T Bank. He’s doing what he can. He’s savvy enough t use the City’s banking power.as leverage. People’s United is The City’s correspondent bank meaning they handle the city’s financial transactions.
If you like upside you say M&T is keeping 80% of Peoples United jobs.
If you’re a pessimist you say they’re eliminating 661 positions.
It’s the same thing.
This wasn’t a hostile takeover.
It was a friendly merger following longstanding trends of bank reduction, employee reduction and operational consolidation.
For many years the ranks of the unemployed have been filled with former bankers. Fact: the Financial Services industry has been America’s largest employer since 2000. Any look at classified ads will confirm that.
Who should the City of Bridgeport do their banking must be selected by an open and transparent bidding process. RFP/RFQ should be the first steps as opposed to the mayor hand-picking a bank for us. What bank the mayor uses as his personal bank? I’ve been with People’s for 23 years. Over 15 years ago, the COB decided to handle the City’s payroll by direct depositing city employees checks in their bank accounts. I recall speaking with someone in Payroll and I recall being told to open a People’s account and upon raising my concerns I went along as I was already banking with People’s. Banking with the credit Union is the same as they use People’s as their Banking Institution. The City should waste no more time and drop People’s Bank. I’m in the process of switching bank. It’s time to cut through the ‘Chase’ and make my move. Rep. Felipe is seeking recommendations of banks to switch to.
Here’s one of my fb replies on Felipes fb post:
It’s time for the city of Bridgeport to start looking for another Bank. People’s Bank or M&T will no longer be our biggest employer. The City of Bridgeport must be People’s biggest/richest bank customer. Just the City’s weekly payroll is in the millions of dollars. The tax collection is in the hundreds of millions. When the city borrows money (yes Bridgeport has borrowed money) via TAN (tax anticipation note) the banks profit even more. Example of a slick way the uses our money: You pay your Bridgeport taxes to the bank today. The bank gets to hold your payment for one month before turning your payment over to the city.
Local Eyes
You are an ass bag!
When I said things about the 661 jobs being lost, you said the future of banking is cryptocurrency. But when Joe Ganim speaks, he’s playing hardball and he’s doing what he can.
You are nothing but Trumbull’s version of Little Stevie A. I can almost feel sorry for you ……. nor.
You misunderstood me.
You’re the asswipe who tried to force Ganim’s hand.
Now you’re chewing his dust!
I have value that exceeds my cost
You have costs that exceed their value.
Bridgeport as proving ground.
Are you up to the challenge?
Local Eyes
You are just like your hero Donald Trump. So keep on spreading the misinformation and at least you’ll keep on believing it.
I was just trying to wake up Rip Van Winkle Mayor Joe to tell him Bridgeport’s burning.
And if you look I was successful in getting Joe to actually say something and do something.
And by writing a letter to AG Tong he admitted it. He couldn’t turn to Sen Blumenthal because he’s been all over it long Joe was. And Lamont would tell him to call Dick. So he pick an innocuous politician like Tong to make it look like Joe is doing something. Thank you Joe Ganim for acknowledging I was right.
And Local Eyes, you can go have a good cry with the original Stevie A because I beat you again.
Bob Walsh is a frustrated executive.
Mayor Ganim is an active executive.
In this case he’s even “going to bat” for people who live outside Bridgeport.
Bob Walsh is making nothing but noise.
Mayor Ganim is trying to make history.
If Loco Eyes remembers what I said, I had predicted this. I said in a few years people would drive by the building and say “That used to be the Peoples Bank Building. Now it’s MT.”
Let me spell it out for people like you and Lennie who don’t get my humor.
Now it’s empty (MT). Get it.
And you can spin however you want the news and about how Joe is trying to do something, but the only ones who believe that a the DTC and it’s minions along with you (Trumbull Stevie A) and Little Stevie A.
So sad.
Joe yanked the money out and he put it in his personal account for safe keeping.
Once he gets around to having an RFP / RFQ and selecting a new bank he will deposit the money there.
Ganim said if the bank doesn’t make good on its promises he will reevaluate the cities banking relationship.
Since the city has yanked out its money should we assume that the bank isn’t going to make good or at least there is a difference of opinion as to what was promised???
Really; there is nothing more imbecilic than playing chicken for chicken-feed with a soul-less institution that is intent upon completion of the financial pillaging and plundering of its latest merger conquest even as it is in the process of positioning itself for greater shareholder equity/dividend profit-growth in a robust loan market that will soon be in money-tightening mode and dealing with a probable, drastic restructuring of the American economy after the stock-market deflates and the infrastructure money floods the economy… M & T wants to have its merger and eat it too. They don’t care a wit about Bridgeport or a few pennies of City money per its competition with the huge equity liquidation that was the prime motive for the “merger” with People’s United. All that the M & T and (former) People’s execs care about is whacking-up all of that liquidity represented by the redundant People’s infrastructure and market-presence… They want to get that done before the latter are devalued in the coming economic restructuring that will reconfigure the financial markets and banking system.
So, if Mayor Ganim wanted to make a smart move, beyond the symbolic, he wouldn’t be trying to create movement toward a further relationship with M & T/People’s; he would be doing something bold and innovative such as bringing in Hartford and DC (by the political short-hairs) to create an attractive context for an institution such as Bridgewater to take over the People’s property and relocate to Bridgeport, even as he brainstorms (as it were…) with appropriate/relevant entities toward bringing tax-base and jobs to breathe some life into a near-dead down-town in the near-term (or there won’t be a long-term…).