After buying Enterprise Bank and gaining significant New Hampshire market share, Massachusetts-based Rockland Trust executives said the bank is focused on organic growth heading into 2026.
Rockland completed the merger with Lowell, Massachusetts-based Enterprise Bank in June of last year.
Enterprise had 2.09 percent of the statewide deposit market at mid-year last year, according to FDIC data and eight branches in-state, while Rockland Trust had none of either before the merger.
The bank will be undergoing a core upgrade in 2026 that is projected to cost $4 million to $5 million, executives told Wall Street analysts during a fourth-quarter earnings call last month.
Rockland incurred merger and acquisition expenses of $12.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2025 and $23.9 million in the third quarter of 2025. The majority of the merger expenses related to change in control and severance contracts, vendor and systems contract terminations, as well as legal and professional fees.
“The priorities are organic growth, watching our expenses and focused on the conversion that’s coming towards the latter part of the year,” Rockland Trust CEO Jeffrey Tengel said. “We got to get the conversion right. You don’t get a second chance if you don’t. We were able to get the conversion with Enterprise don pretty well. We’re working at making sure the same experience happens with the entire Enterprise come October. Those are the things that were, you know, that we’re really focused on. I would say M&A is not one of them.”
Executives at Rockland’s biggest local rival, Boston-based Eastern Bank, also stressed to investors that they’d be focusing on organic growth in Eastern’s own earnings conference the same day.
Rockland Trust executives said in their call that due to the bank’s improved credit profile, it is looking to resume “normal” commercial real estate loan growth.
Rockland’s commercial and industrial portfolio grew by $79.5 million in the quarter while nonperforming loans decreased to $83.6 million at December 31, 2025 as compared to $86.6 million in September 30, 2025. Delinquencies as a percentage of total loans decreased 17 basis points from the prior quarter to 0.32 percent.
