Business
Eastern Bankshares, Inc. Announces Agreement to Sell the Insurance Operations of Eastern Insurance Group, LLC to Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. and Enters Into Definitive Agreement to Merge with Cambridge Bancorp
Strategic Repositioning Strengthens Market Position as Greater Boston’s Leading Community Bank BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Eastern Bankshares, Inc. (“Eastern”
About this update from Eastern Bankshares, Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"\nStrategic Repositioning Strengthens Market Position\nas Greater Boston’s Leading Community Bank\n\n\n BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--\nEastern Bankshares, Inc. (“Eastern” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ Global Select Market: EBC), the stock holding company for Eastern Bank, announced that its wholly owned subsidiary Eastern Insurance Group, LLC (“Eastern Insurance”) today entered into a definitive agreement to sell its insurance operations to Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (NYSE: AJG) (“Gallagher”) for approximately $510 million (“the insurance transaction”). Also today, Eastern and Cambridge Bancorp (NASDAQ: CATC) (“Cambridge”), the parent company of Cambridge Trust Company, announced they have entered into a definitive merger agreement pursuant to which Cambridge will merge with and into Eastern in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $528 million (“the merger”).\n\n\nKey Highlights:\n\n\n\nMerger will create a $27 billion combined franchise and further solidify Eastern as the largest Boston-based community bank by deposits1\n\n\n\nSale of Eastern Insurance, the third largest bank-affiliated insurance brokerage in the country, will allow Eastern to benefit from valuation premium and redeploy capital for in-market strategic growth opportunity\n\n\n\nCombined transactions are financially compelling with estimated 20% earnings per share accretion, 7.5% tangible book value per share* dilution and a 2.75 year earnback\n\n\n\nMerger will create the largest bank-owned Independent Investment Advisor in Massachusetts and the tenth largest overall in Massachusetts2\n\n\n\nEastern plans to welcome Denis Sheahan, Cambridge CEO, to its executive team as CEO\n\n\n\nInvestor call at 9:00 a.m. ET September 20, 2023\n\n\nEastern and Cambridge Merger\n\n\nUnder the terms of the merger agreement, which has been unanimously approved by both boards of directors, each share of Cambridge common stock will be exchanged for 4.956 shares of Eastern common stock. Eastern anticipates issuing approximately 39.4 million shares of its common stock in the merger. Based upon Eastern’s $13.41 per share closing price on September 18, 2023, the transaction is valued at approximately $528 million and the aggregate consideration represents 114% of Cambridge’s tangible book value* and a 24% premium to Cambridge’s thirty-day volume weighted average price.\n\n\nUpon clo...