Mr. Burton: Hampden Bank was founded in 1852 as a mutual savings bank for one specific reason - to serve the needs of the workers of the Western Railroad whose labors were rapidly bringing Springfield into the industrial age as a manufacturing and transportation hub. Back then the mutual was a common structure throughout New England and nearly every community had its own bank.
I came here at the end of 1993, when the bank was about 150 million in assets. As a traditional thrift, it had mostly home mortgages and fixed income investments for assets and typical thrift deposits, mostly CDs on the liability side. The bond market crashed in early 1994, so we began diversifying our asset base into commercial lending, grew the bank and by 2005 came to the conclusion that we've been so successful in growing the bank that we needed more capital. After investigating various capital-raising alternatives, we made a decision to go public, closed the transaction with 75 million of additional capital in January of 2007 and became listed on NASDAQ. Since that time, we continued to grow the bank with more than enough capital during a period when capital was king. Ultimately, the timing was fortuitous.
TWST: What are the key factors that differentiate Hampden from its competition? Is it your business focus, geography, the quality of your assets? What might some of those factors be?
Mr. Burton: We epitomize the definition of "community bank." We have a diverse loan portfolio divided between commercial loans, residential mortgages and consumer loans. We focus on providing extraordinary service, competitive pricing and quality products, and we're dedicated toward optimizing all delivery channels for the convenience of our customers. Although not totally measurable, the fact that our people are totally engaged and accessible in the communities we serve does indeed differentiate us. Geographically our market encompasses all of Hampden County and northern Connecticut with a primary focus on Greater Springfield and its surrounding communities.
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