Citizens Bank has signed a lease for approximately 50,000 square feet at the Legacy Place retail development in Dedham. The bank will relocate its consumer and business banking, consumer finance and marketing departments to office space within the center. Citizens Bank will also become the official financial services provider of Legacy Place, with the bank opening a 3,000-square-foot branch as well as multiple ATM locations on site. . . . more
America may run on Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, but one local bank is hoping a branch inside one of the coffee giant’s stores may add its own version of liquidity to customers’ fiscal diets.
LONDON - Britain disclosed a second rescue plan for the country's ailing banks yesterday, hoping to thaw frozen lending by offering to insure banks against large-scale losses on bad assets they already hold.
Investors, however, were spooked by fears that the second bank-rescue plan in three months was a step toward full nationalization of one or more banks. Fears focused on the Royal Bank of Scotland, which said it is likely to report a record full-year loss.
RBS, the parent company of Providence-based Citizens Bank, said its losses for the full year could be $41.3 billion, which would be the biggest ever by a British corporation.
"There is a great deal of uncer tainty. There seems to be some concern doing the rounds that the group will be totally nationalized sometime in the near future," said Keith Bowman, analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown stockbrokers. . . . more
PROVIDENCE – The in-store partnership between Citizens Financial Group Inc. and Stop & Shop Supermarket Co. LLC has proven so successful, the companies have agreed to extend it for another nine years. Financial terms were not disclosed.
“They’ve been a great partner for us,” Robert Keane, a s
pokesperson for Quincy, Mass.-based Stop & Shop, told Providence Business News today. “We think of them not so much as a tenant in our stores [but] as a business partner … and we look forward to continuing that relationship.”
The deal “extends our partnership with Stop & Shop through 2017, with an option to extend it for another five years,” Mike Jones, New England region spokesman for Citizens, told PBN in a telephone interview today.
“It’s really an affirmation of the great partnership we have with Stop & Shop, and it’s an affirmation of our belief that our in-store model provides value to our customers,” he said. “Obviously, there’s a tremendous convenience … our in-store branches are open seven days a week and offer extended weekday hours.”
“We have 540 in-store locations throughout our footprint and 23 in-stores in Rhode Island,” with Stop & Shop and other retail partners, Jones said.
Those locations have proven a big source of new accounts for Citizens.
Overall, “we generate 30 percent more new checking-account customers in-store,” he said. “Your traditional branches, we have maybe 5,000 customers per week, most of whom are repeat customers. In any given Stop & Shop store, we have 15,000 to 20,000 customers in our lobby, most of whom are potential new customers,” Jones said.
“It’s also a great platform for us to offer value-added promotions,” he said.
“We kicked off a new promotion yesterday that involves us giving away $135,000 in free groceries,” through Stop & Shop and other supermarket partners, Jones said. Any customer who opens a new checking account at one of Citizens’ in-store branches will be entered in a drawing, in mid-May, for a $250 prize. With one prize per location, that amounts to $5,750 in Rhode Island alone.
“We’re also offering a cash-back program, Extra Green,” starting this quarter and continuing indefinitely, Jones said. “Every time a customer who is enrolled in the program – and it’s free of charge … every time they spend $50 or more at Stop & Shop, they automatically receive into their Citizens’ account a certain percentage.” Extra Green participants who have “our premiere account,” Circle Gold Checking with interest, get back 3 percent of their grocery purchase; those with regular Circle Checking get 2 percent; and those with the basic Green Checking get 1 percent, he said. “And that’s Citizens Bank’s money, that’s not customer money.”
Source: Providence Business News
NEW YORK CITY-GlobeSt.com exclusively learns that John K.C. Hyslip and Net Lease Capital Advisors have acquired 114 Citizens Bank branch buildings for $135 million. The seller of the properties, which are located in Michigan, Vermont, Illinois, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and New York, is UBS affiliate CRE Master JV Holdings LLC.
Net Lease Capital Advisors is a Boston-based real estate investment and advisory firm providing advanced tax solutions for property owners. John K.C. Hyslip, as the equity investor--with the Net Lease Capital Advisor's team--obtained a mezzanine loan to complete the transaction. President Ted Morandin of Morprop Advisors LLC, who acted as an advisor to all parties, could not speak for UBS' motivations in selling the facilities. The branches total 372,780 sf.
Hyslip tells GlobeSt.com that he sold "$250 million of assets in 2006 and 2007 at premium prices in what might have been the strongest seller market ever. I am reinvesting that capital now in what is a very different, perhaps one might say, lender's market." He adds that "obtaining a mezzanine loan today is a great challenge. The rental bumps were CPI or 1.5%, the lesser. You can't finance uncertain cash flows. So, we obtained an insurance policy structured to make up any difference should CPI fall short of 1.5% per year. Just after going to contract, the parent company, Royal Bank of Scotland, completed its consolidation of, Citizens Financial Group, resulting in credit enhancement." He continues that the insurance company guaranteeing the cash flow and tenant's parent, RBS, are both rates "AA" by Standard & Poor's. "We successfully created a credit strip as necessary collateral for the mezzanine loan."
Hyslip tells GlobeSt.com that the facilities will continues to operate as they have been. "We are excited to establish the kind of relationship with Citizens Financial Group that we have with Sovereign Bank."
Source: GlobeSt
