Pittsburgh, like many places, feels queasy every time an out-of-town concern purchases a home-grown company. The newcomers typically promise jobs, investment and other goodies, but delivery can be another matter.
Happily, that has not been the case a year after the arrival of Citizens Bank. The Rhode Island-based financial institution bought Mellon Financial Corp.'s retail branches for $2 billion in December 2001. Since then, Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania has opened more branches and closed none, added more employees and become the neighborhood player it said it would be. (And Mellon, which refocused its business, has flourished, too, thanks very much.)
The numbers translate this way.
Citizens kept 4,135 Mellon employees (2,000 in Western Pennsylvania), then hired 12 percent more in March. It now has 125 branches in the state, compared with the 118 held by Mellon, and an additional $1 billion in deposits.
Last month the U.S. Small Business Administration called Citizens the No. 1 Small Business Lender in Western Pennsylvania for approving 671 small business loans, the largest number of any bank in the state. Citizens also committed $50 million to Fannie Mae, for use in low-cost mortgages in low-income neighborhoods in the region.
As a corporate neighbor, Citizens helped save Allegheny County's bookmobile program with a $100,000 sponsorship; it gave the city a $4 million neighborhood development package; and it launched a Community Sabbatical Program, which gives employees a three-month paid leave of absence to do community service.
That's good citizenship by Citizens Bank -- and a record worth emulating by Pittsburgh businesses old or new.
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