People in general do not like uncertainty, he said. As long as people that I have worked with in the past continue to work at EAB, I am not concerned. The company still has an uphill battle. The region has endured considerable consolidation in the banking industry, leaving some middle-market borrowers skeptical that service will remain good or even get better. I don't like all these mergers, said Bernard Futter, president of Futter Lumber Corp. in Rockville Centre.
Consolidation commonly affects service negatively, according to banking experts.
Edgar Goodale, president of Riverhead Building Supply Corp., whose company has been around for 50 years, said he steers clear of large money-center banks. We dealt with a bank that merged several times over and we noticed that the loan documents got thicker and so did the layers of management, said Goodale, who banks with Riverhead-based Suffolk Bancorp. We finally got tired of it. People get tired of getting the corporate tour every six months. Except for banks, consolidation benefits no one.