To our valued members:
I am pleased to announce we have entered into an agreement to acquire Catskill Hudson Bank and merge them into our financial cooperative. A $500 million community bank founded in Sullivan County, Catskill Hudson was established in 1993 and currently serves 7,500 customers across 14 branches and corporate offices in Sullivan, Orange, Ulster, Saratoga, and Albany Counties. This merger with us will benefit their consumers, small businesses and employees as well.
In today’s increasingly competitive, heavily regulated environment, smaller community banks like Catskill Hudson face many obstacles to growth. Catskill Hudson leadership recognized that a strong financial partner like HVCU can help to ensure future financial success for both their customers and employees. For Catskill Hudson customers, we can offer a much wider array of financial services, while providing job security for its employees. An exciting component of this acquisition is the addition of Sullivan County to our field of membership, as well as the branches that will eventually be available to serve all HVCU members. And we are committed to retaining all of Catskill Hudson’s dedicated employees.
This is an important moment in our growth story. Welcoming the Catskill Hudson customers and employees to the credit union will create a stronger institution than either of us were individually. Together, we will advance our mission by serving members in the northern counties of our current field of membership, and expand our service to include Sullivan County to the west.
Today’s announcement is the first step, and we expect the transaction to close during the second half of 2024. As we prepare, we remain focused on providing members with the best financial options and pledge to keep you updated when new information is available. We anticipated some questions that you may have, so please review them below and reach out to us if you have others.
On behalf of our Board of Directors and Executive Management Committee, we are excited to continue growing our cooperative to provide all members with opportunities to create the financial freedom they deserve. Thank you for your continued support of HVCU. We look forward to an exciting 2024.
Jonathan Roberts
President/CEO
To remain a strong, financially stable cooperative, HVCU looks to grow not only through additional member accounts and loans, but also through mergers and acquisitions like this one. HVCU will benefit with the addition of a new county to our Field of Membership (Sullivan), as well as 11 branches and three corporate offices in regions we already earmarked for possible expansion. In today’s increasingly competitive and regulatory financial environment, Catskill Hudson faces obstacles that affect all smaller community banks. As they merge into HVCU, both their employees and customers will realize a number of benefits, most importantly is the stability of their jobs and their banking relationships.
HVCU has pledged to continue employment for all Catskill Hudson employees, and there will be no changes to our own staffing.
We expect the approval process to take at minimum 6-7 months, but it may be longer. We will develop a joint plan to integrate our two organizations fully within 12-18 months from now.