Marine Midland Bank
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Marine Midland Bank was a bank formerly headquartered in Buffalo with several hundred branches throughout the state of New York. Marine Midland began in 1850 in Buffalo as the Marine Trust Company with the objective of financing the new shipping trade on the Great Lakes. As the bank expanded into New York state it added the Midland to its name.
In 1980 The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation acquired a 51% shareholding in Marine Midland Bank, which it extended to full ownership in 1987.
In 1994, Marine Midland acquired Spectrum Home Mortgage, which operated in eight states. Then in 1995, Marine acquired United Northern Federal Savings Bank, with branches in Watertown and Lowville, New York. Marine Midland also acquired The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation's six New York City retail branches, and the next year Hang Seng Bank's two branches in New York City. That same year, Marine Midland acquired 11 branches from the East River Savings Bank in the New York Metropolitan area. Marine also acquired the US dollar clearing business of J P Morgan. At the same time, HSBC transferred two branches in the northwestern United States to HSBC Bank Canada. The next year, Marine completed its acquisition of First Federal Savings and Loan from Toronto-based CT Financial Services, for $620 million. First Federal Savings, headquartered in Rochester, had $7.2 billion in assets, 1,600 employees, 79 retail branches in New York State and 15 mortgage origination offices in nine states.
In 1998, Marine Midland acquired First Commercial Bank of Philadelphia, which had been established in 1989 as the first state-chartered Asian-American bank in Pennsylvania. The bank served the local Asian community, which often faced language and cultural barriers at traditional American banks. Marine paid $23.75 million for First Commercial, which had $90 million in assets and $78 million in deposits in two branches.
The bank continued to operate under the Marine Midland name until 1998, when the branch offices were rebranded as HSBC and the legal name changed to HSBC Bank USA N.A.. In 1983, Marine Midland Bank acquired Carroll McEntee & McGinley (now HSBC Securities (USA)), a New York-based primary dealer in US government securities.
Marine Midland owned, either wholly or in part, several prominent New York City properties, including 250 Park Avenue (100%) and the Marine Midland Building at 140 Broadway in Manhattan (indirect 20% participation in Harry Helmsley's interest), near the World Trade Center. Completed in 1967, this 52-story, 688 ft (209.7 m) highrise provides 1.2 million square feet (110,000 m²) of office space in lower Manhattan and is noted for Isamu Noguchi's distinctive Cube sculpture at its entrance.
Also of note, Marine Midland had purchased naming rights to the Buffalo sports and entertainment venue constructed in 1996, the Marine Midland Arena, home of the Buffalo Sabres. Today, the venue is known as the HSBC Arena.
