By GARY HABER
ghaber@bizjournals.com

Robert Wilmers, M&T Bank Corp.'s CEO, stepped into the lion's den in Wilmington, Del., when he gave a March 7 keynote speech at the Newcastle County Chamber of Commerce.

The Buffalo-based bank is scooping up wounded Wilmington Trust Corp. for a fire-sale price of $320 million. Just weeks earlier, it handed out pink slips to 721 Wilmington Trust employees, about one-quarter of the bank's workforce.

Many Delawareans are smarting from the sale of a once-mighty local bank to an out-of-towner with few ties to Delaware. That was different from M&T's purchase of Baltimore's Provident Bank. M&T was already the region's second-biggest bank when it bought Provident in 2009. And it had already ingratiated itself to the city by putting its name on the Ravens' stadium and sponsoring the football team.

Wilmers made his pilgrimage from Buffalo to Wilmington to give an address both humble about M&T's successes and candid about Wilmington Trust's problems.

"He impressed a lot of people with his candor and straight talk," said John Carney, Delaware's U.S. congressman and a former two-term lieutenant governor. "He didn't try to sugarcoat it."

Before his speech, Wilmers sat down with a reporter from Business First's sister publication, the Baltimore Business Journal, to share his thoughts on a variety of topics - from M&T's growth in the mid-Atlantic to the bank's plans for repaying its TARP loan. Here are excerpts of that conversation.

What is M&T's growth strategy in Baltimore and the mid-Atlantic?

Wilmers: We've never had a growth strategy. When opportunities come along to make acquisitions, if we can make them at a fair price, which is a good investment for the shareholders and something our employees can have some fun with, we're all for it. We're particularly interested in making acquisitions in the geography we serve because, like in any industry, it's more interesting to have more market share than less market share.

M&T has been very active in Baltimore, acquiring Provident Bank and Bradford Bank. Why do you like the Baltimore market?

Wilmers: It's a great market; it's a vibrant market. It's our market. We like concentration. Having concentration, you can spread your costs over a broader base, just like in any industry, whether it's cars or toothpaste.

Is M&T looking at other acquisitions in Baltimore?

Wilmers: To my knowledge, no. But are we often looking at things that never get anywhere? Yes. Does that mean we're looking at something in the Maryland market today? Nothing has reached my level.

Any plans for opening branches to fill in gaps in your footprint in the mid-Atlantic?

Wilmers: We don't think in terms that we want to have more fill-in. If you've got to be such-and-such-a-size bank by a certain year or we have to be in a certain geography in a certain amount of time, those are banks that wind up in the bank graveyard.

You're closing in on Bank of America as the largest bank in Baltimore. Is it your goal to overtake them?

Wilmers: We don't think in terms of who's bigger. We just want to be the bank for our communities.

How important has the deal to put M&T's name on the Ravens' stadium been in growing the bank's presence in Baltimore?

Wilmers: When the troops came to me and said we've got to put our name on the stadium, I told them I thought they were nuts. I was very much opposed to it. Then they told me, ‘That's nice for you to say, but we've just acquired this wonderful franchise (Allfirst) and nobody in Baltimore has ever heard of us. And the banking industry in Baltimore spends more on advertising than the banking industry in Syracuse, Buffalo and Rochester combined. If you don't do something, Wilmers, you've got your head in the sand.' So I reluctantly gave in. I think I was wrong and they were right.

A lot of M&T's business now comes from the mid-Atlantic. Would there ever come a time when you would consider moving the headquarters from Buffalo to Baltimore?

Wilmers: Our headquarters has been here (in Buffalo) since 1856. We've got 5,000 people there. As long as I'm around, the headquarters will always be in Buffalo.

You're 76, and have been M&T's CEO and chairman since 1983. Have you given any thought to when you would retire and who would succeed you?

Wilmers: Retirement's in second place. We've got a management committee of 14 people, and any one of them could do a better job than me.

Atwood "Woody" Collins III, president of M&T's mid-Atlantic region, is heading up the integration of Wilmington Trust and M&T. How important is it that the merger go well?

Wilmers: The last acquisition a bank makes is always the most important acquisition a bank makes. If you don't do well on that, whatever you did before doesn't matter much. Beyond that, it's the second-largest acquisition we've made, after Allfirst.

Was Wilmington Trust's loan portfolio in worse shape than you thought?

Wilmers: We were pretty much aware of what the problems were. Remember, we'd done our due diligence.

Was it necessary to lay off 721 people at Wilmington Trust?

Wilmers: There's no question in my mind - and in everybody's mind - that when you make an acquisition, unfortunately, there are savings to be made by consolidating operations. That was the case with Allfirst, and that was the case today.

Do you have a timetable for repaying the TARP loans M&T, Provident Bank and Wilmington Trust received?

Wilmers: Those people who have paid back TARP have done so mainly for one of two reasons: One, to have greater freedom with salaries. We feel we're able to pay our people fairly. I'm not looking for a big raise. The other reason they've done it is they're concerned that having the TARP represents a stigma, a black mark for the bank. I think since we're one of only two banks listed on the S&P 500 that have not cut their dividend, we don't have that stigma.

Why take the loan at all?

Wilmers: We didn't like the idea of TARP in the first place, but we were concerned at that point in time that if we didn't take TARP, it would be a black mark against our name in the markets, to our customers and to the regulatory authorities. As it turned out, the black mark went the other way.