Community Bank System To Buy Northeast Retirement Services For $140 Mln

(RTTNews) - Community Bank System, Inc. (CBU) announced Monday that is has entered into an agreement to acquire Northeast Retirement Services, Inc. or NRS for about $140 million in a cash and stock deal.

Under the deal terms, shareholders of NRS will receive consideration of approximately $140 million, in the form of approximately $70 million of Community Bank System stock and $70 million in cash.

Excluding acquisition-related expenses, it is expected that the impact of the transaction will be $0.04 accretive to Community Bank System's GAAP earnings per share in its first full year and approximately $0.05 accretive in its second year.

Community Bank System anticipates that the transaction will be approximately $0.16 accretive to its cash earnings per share in the first full year, excluding acquisition-related expenses, and $0.17 accretive to cash EPS in its second year.

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

NRS is a privately held provider of plan accounting, transfer agency, fund administration, trust and retirement plan services. Upon the closing of the deal, NRS will become a subsidiary of Benefit Plans Administrative Services, Inc., a subsidiary of Community Bank System.

The combination of NRS and BPAS is expected to create an organization with over $80 million in annual revenue, over $50 billion in trust assets and 3,800 retirement and other employee benefit plan administration clients throughout the United States and Puerto Rico.