CoreStates Financial Corporation was a United States bank holding company in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area.
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Early history
The bank was originally founded on August 8, 1803 as the Philadelphia Bank. George Clymer was the bank's first president. Later, the name became Philadelphia National Bank or PNB.
Acquisitions
PNB acquired Hamilton Bank of central Pennsylvania, and later New Jersey National Bank, headquartered in Trenton, NJ in the mid-1980s. During the time of the Hamilton merger the holding company, Corestates was formed. Corestates Bank of Delaware was also part of the regional powerhouse. In 1990, CoreStates acquired crosstown rival First Pennsylvania Bank. In a controversial deal announced a few days prior to the announcement of staff reductions and branch closings with regard to the First Pennsylvania merger, Corestates signed a $20 million naming rights and marketing package with Spectacor for the new arena, being built next to the old Philadelphia Spectrum (later known as the CoreStates Spectrum), to be known as the CoreStates Center.
In the fall of 1995, CoreStates would acquire another regional rival, Meridian Bancorp. At $3.2 billion, it was their largest acquisition to date. George W. Strawbridge, Jr., a Campbell Soup Company heir and Director and a major shareholder in Meridian Bancorp, became the largest individual shareholder in the Corestates Financial Corporation and was named to the Corestates Board of Directors once the merger was finalized.
Acquired
CoreStates was then acquired by First Union in 1998. The CoreStates-First Union merger was the largest bank merger in the United States at the time. First Union bought Wachovia in 2001 to form the nation's fifth largest bank holding company. Because of negative connotations with the First Union name, it was dropped in favor of Wachovia Corporation.
Headquarters building
The company's original headquarters building is located at the corner of Broad and Chestnut Streets in Center City, Philadelphia, and is now known as One South Broad Street.
CoreStates/Philadelphia National Bank was a pioneer in electronic banking, forming MAC, a strategic venture in shared ATM networks, in the 1970s. One of CoreStats' strategic partners and co-inventors in the MAC venture was First Pennsylvania Bank, which it acquired in 1990.
External links
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