RankingBanking 25 - Flipbook - Page 20
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It’s not that Stein thinks the bank must always
do M&A. But he does think the bank needs to
grow to achieve efficiencies of scale and ensure
the bank has the technology and capabilities to
serve customers. “We’re in a consolidating industry, and scale matters,” he says.
A Deal Delayed
Stability was hard to maintain during the whole
ordeal of the Umpqua merger. Umpqua CEO
Cort O’Haver and Stein had gotten together to
create one of the few large, independent banks in
the Northwest, announcing their deal in October
Still, management seems to understand that
rapid growth comes with certain risks. “We’ve
seen banks that just grow for the sake of growth,
and quadruple in size in three years, and that story never ends well,” Anderson says. Unlike some
other regional banks that failed in the spring of
2023, Columbia’s business model is plain vanilla.
It’s based on a diversified core deposit base,
2021. Stein would become CEO of the holding
company and the bank, which would keep the
name Umpqua. O’Haver would stay on as executive chairman. Mergers of equals are hard as it is.
Regulators made it even harder.
Anderson believes the deal added a few gray
hairs to his head. The stress began with the delays
branch banking infrastructure, solid capital and
in regulatory approval, which make it hard to
credit, and little to no wholesale funding. “I think
plan. “We had six different legal day-ones planned
the chief credit officer [at Columbia] has used the
because of different scenarios we were hearing
word ‘boring’ when asked about credit, which is a
from our regulators, ‘Oh, it’s coming. Nope, it’s
good thing,” says Matthew Clark, managing direc-
not,’” he says. Anderson, who came from the
tor and senior research analyst for Piper Sandler
Umpqua side, co-lead the integration management
& Co. “So yeah, credit has been pretty stable and
office with a colleague from Columbia.
benign for a number of quarters now. I don’t see
that changing materially.”
“It was pretty frustrating internally, because if
you look at Umpqua standalone, Columbia stand-
Columbia Banking System’s History of Remaining Relevant
1993
2003
2017
W.W. “Bill” Philip starts
Melanie Dressel, who helped found
Dressel dies
a community bank after
Columbia Bank, becomes CEO,
unexpectedly at the
selling Puget Sound
helping it grow to 140 branches and
age of 64.
Bancorp.
complete seven acquisitions.
