Suffolk Bancorp Announces Sale of Wealth Management Business to Beacon Trust

On Nov 3, 2014

Suffolk Bancorp, Riverhead, New York, parent company of Suffolk County National Bank (the “Bank”), announces that the Bank has completed the sale of its Wealth Management business to Beacon Trust Company (“Beacon”).

Beacon is a subsidiary of The Provident Bank. Based in Morristown, Beacon is a full service wealth management firm with approximately $1.04 billion in assets under administration and decades of proven success, superior solutions and exceptional client service.

In announcing the sale, Suffolk Executive Vice President Frank D. Filipo commented, “We believe that the sale of our wealth management business to Beacon offers an opportunity for our existing clients to avail themselves of the highest level of satisfaction in this specialized area of financial services. We are pleased that Beacon will operate locally at the existing Wealth Management Services office location in Bohemia, New York.”

Suffolk President and CEO, Howard C. Bluver, went on to say that “We recently completed a strategic review of all business lines, and concluded that the marginal contribution of the wealth management business, together with its relatively small scale did not justify the expense, management and compliance resources that this business requires. By exiting the business, we are able to allocate additional resources to our core lending and deposit businesses, and to fuel our continuing western expansion. Just as important, with Beacon our customers have access to a much more complete and sophisticated set of products and technology, from a company for whom wealth management represents a core business line.”

Beacon President James D. Nesci commented: “We are delighted by this opportunity to add a physical presence for our firm on Long Island where many of our valued clients currently reside, and we look forward to bringing our personalized style of wealth management to all of Suffolk’s trust and wealth clients.”

Specific terms of the sale were not disclosed. Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz served as legal advisor to Suffolk on the transaction.  Beacon was advised by the law firm of McCarter & English.

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