Buffalo, N.Y.-based M&T Bank Corp. is open to a merger of equals, CFO and Executive Vice President Darren King told analysts at the Barclays Global Financial Services Conference in New York.
"If someone approached us, we wouldn't tell them to go away," King said. However, he noted that the company does not need to acquire to grow and has grown without M&A, so it can wait for the right opportunity.
The CFO said that while there was a lot of M&A in early 2018 "when credit was great and margins were expanding," M&T encountered a mismatch between seller expectations on price and what it was willing to pay.
"But if those prices come down, it would be logical that you end up in that space. I don't think that's enough of a catalyst right now. I think someone's going to have to actually experience some challenges and to spur activity, but we'll see," King said.
King also touched on the bank's outlook for its net interest margin. He noted that the falling-interest-rate environment is putting downward pressure on NIM, but he expressed confidence that M&T's NIM will remain above competitors' thanks to its balance sheet composition, which allows for lower funding costs.
