M T Bank

M T Bank:Wilmington Trust Corp., the Delaware bank founded by the du Pont family and undermined by souring loans, agreed to sell itself to M&T Bank Corp. for $351 million in stock, or about half its market value last week.

The deal values 107-year-old Wilmington Trust at $3.84 a share, or 46% less than its closing price Oct. 29. Investors will get 0.051 share of Buffalo, New York-based M&T for each Wilmington share, the companies said today in a statement. Wilmington Chief Executive Officer Donald Foley said in the statement it was “the best option for our shareholders, as well as our clients and the employees.”

Wilmington Trust put itself up for sale as it prepared to report a sixth straight quarterly loss. The firm and its bankers at Lazard Ltd. contacted bigger lenders including M&T, Bank of Montreal and Toronto-Dominion Bank about a takeover, and solicited interest from private-equity investors in making a capital infusion, people with knowledge of the matter have said.

Wilmington said today the third quarter loss widened to $365.3 million from $5.9 million in the year-earlier period and $116.4 in the second quarter. Losses in the past two years were fueled by soured commercial real estate loans and investments in pools of trust-preferred securities. Loans and real estate that aren’t receiving interest increased 77 % in the quarter to $988.6 million from the second quarter, it said.

M T Bank