Gillian Tan, Columnist

M&T Bank Should Focus on the Future

Its CEO's gripes about regulation won't boost performance at the $26 billion lender, so he should concentrate on what will.

March 13, 2017 at 11:30 AM UTC

By Gillian Tan

Gillian Tan is a senior reporter covering finance and alternative asset classes including real estate, infrastructure, private equity, private credit, venture capital and sports business. She previously wrote an opinion column for Bloomberg and was a reporter at the Wall Street Journal. She is a qualified chartered accountant.

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M&T Bank Corp. Chairman and CEO Bob Wilmers, a longtime critic of excessive bank regulation, is at it again.

In his letter to shareholders in the lender's 2016 annual report published Thursday, Wilmers spent longer than usual -- some 2,700 words, or almost a third of his remarks-- griping about regulation. Laws are so burdensome and restrictive, he claims, that they've hampered the regional bank's ability to lend and to invest in itself, either through the introduction of new products and technologies or by other means. Here's a highlight: