Timothy Geelan and Kyle Eagleson
CEO and President, Guilford Savings Bank
Ages: 60 and 45
Industry experience: 40 and 20 years

Guilford Savings Bank and Eastern Connecticut Savings Bank have announced their intention to merge.

The merger was approved unanimously by both boards and will create a bank with $1.4 billion in combined assets and 25,000 clients

The combined financial institution will be led by GSB President Kyle Eagleson, who will also succeed Timothy Geelan as CEO in March of 2025. Geelan will still be on GSB’s board. Eagleson previously worked at wealth management and advisory firm Janney Montgomery Scott.

Eastern Connecticut Savings Bank President and CEO Lisa Griffin will work within the new organization’s executive leadership team as a market president for the new combined entity’s eastern region, covering Eastern Connecticut Savings’ five branches in and around Norwich. GSB’s existing branches are largely concentrated in Shoreline communities, with the exception of one each in North Haven, Northford and North Madison.

There are no immediate plans for any branch closures. Closing of the merger is expected to take place in the second quarter of 2025, subject to regulatory approvals.

Q: Can you discuss the merger, and how it ended up coming to fruition?
Eagleson: Banks talk to each other, especially in the mutual market pretty often. It’s a consolidated business. It’s a business that is rapidly changing as far as delivery and as a business model. Economies of scale matter, and that’s something we were pursuing strategically in our in our strategic plan for the better part of five years, and so we’ve been out there talking to a few banks. This particular opportunity came about in March when we had a conversation with Eastern Connecticut Savings Bank. They too were looking for partnerships, someone that’s like-minded, puts mutual ownership first. They have a similar customer service philosophy that we do. So we continued conversations and things were syncing up pretty well right off the bat. Our markets didn’t have much overlap, and we saw the need to bring this together quicker then some of the typical deals that you see out there in the space.

Q: Why has M&A been a part of the strategic plan and looking ahead to 2025 do you look to hopefully continue to be active in the M&A market, or do you think you’ll scale back or rethink after this recent deal?
Eagleson: We want to be careful and cautious as we go. If you understand the mutual [bank] model, we don’t have access to the capital markets, so you only can grow so fast and you only can operate at a certain pace. With banking, there’s a lot of core technology behind the scenes that need to be integrated and we’re very aware and prioritize that. We want to get through that flawlessly. Some of our regional friends have struggled with that, and we want to make sure we nail that out of the gate.

Why we chose M&A? A while back, our board made a commitment to be a statewide bank. For 140 years or so, we’ve served the Shoreline Community, really, from Brantford to Old Saybrook and since then we’ve been broadening our wings a little bit around the towns that touch those communities. But M&A kind of gets us to live up to our vision a little quicker, and we saw the Norwich, Jewett City, Plainfield market as diversification for us. So that sort of made sense business wise to us. We’ve always wanted to achieve economies of scale and again, normal growth you get there but with M&A  you get there quicker.

Geelan: Given the cost of technology, we’re competing with everybody you know, fintech, the big guys, all of that you know. So you have to make those investments. Compliance and regulatory costs aren’t going down either. So, yeah, it makes sense. As Kyle said, all banks are talking to each other constantly, just looking for opportunities and in the mutual one probably the biggest thing is culture. How does it fit together? And we found a good dance partner. I think, you know one in one makes three. It will be better for all of our stakeholders.

Q: A lot of focus can be on the dollars and cents of a deal, but how do you make sure that the people who are within that deal, how do you make sure that the cultures are able to blend or come together?
Eagleson: I think it’s defining what you want as the culture first and rallying around that and communicating that. We’ve talked a lot about that with Eastern, their board and their executive team. We want to be performance-based and we value that. We also value our employees as our most important asset and you start defining what it is that brings you to some of those goals and we’ve let them in on those discussions. We want to retain their leadership team. We want to retain their people.

This is not your typical stock merger where you’re going to see massive layoffs. We actually have said there’s no anticipated layoffs here, because we’re in different markets. There’s, a shortage of talent in the banking space and so we want to retain folks there. So that’s really how we’re approaching culture. Both finance departments are meeting, both lending departments are meeting to see how we go at this thing. We’re both in our little section of Connecticut, and there’s space to grow, and so I don’t think we’ll be stepping on each other’s toes.

Geelan: Both banks really have a similar history of commitment to the customer, commitment to giving back to the community as well, and making sure their employees have room to grow. So a lot of that stuff, I think, is innate with mutuals. As Kyle said, we’ve been talking to each other, so you already have a feel. That’s why a lot of these deals don’t get done, is because it breaks down based on clash of cultures, from the board to management. This one, just through those conversations, you know we feel comfortable that we’re of like mind.

Q: Looking ahead is there a specific area of Connecticut that you hope to get a foot into and, is there any desire to cross state lines whether it be Rhode Island or Massachusetts?
Eagleson: Without giving our competitors the playbook, I think all of the above. Eastern already does some business in Rhode Island so we’ll continue to entertain that. It’s not a huge part of their business model, but they do cross state lines.

Q: What is your sense of the M&A market in Connecticut as we head into 2025?
Geelan : It’s no secret, it’s a consolidating industry. The pressures on banks, earnings wise, cost, technology, compliance, all that isn’t going down. You see a lot of M&A happening in Massachusetts. I expect that to continue. So can’t specifically say about Connecticut, but you know, scale matters, and building it organically, that’s certainly an option, but a slow one. I would not be surprised to see you more activity in Connecticut and around New England.

Eagleson: I share Tim’s take on that one. The margins for community banks are pretty low right now. We hold a lot of the loans on our balance sheet. We’re under attack from other sectors. We have fintech competing against us. We have big tech with Amazon in our space. We have Walmart that provides what we used to think of banking services, and so our margins are getting smaller. Really as the business evolves, you need partnerships to thrive and survive and so that’s what we intend to do.

Eagleson’s Five Favorite Sports Teams

1. Boston Red Sox
2. Uconn Huskies
3. New England Patriots
4. Boston Celtics
5. Guilford High School Grizzlies

 Geelan’s Five Favorite Hobbies

1. Travel
2. Pyrography
3. Cooking and eating – favorite go to place locally is Jalapeno Heaven
4. Gardening – with my wife of 35 yrs
5. Tracing my ancestry roots and helping others to do so.