Investors Bank acquires Brooklyn Federal, but will unload real estate assets

Investors Bancorp CEO Kevin Cummings and a Brooklyn Federal Savings branch at 81 Court Street

New Jersey-based Investors Bancorp acquired Brooklyn Federal Bancorp for $10.3 million, Long Island Business News reported, while unloading most of Brooklyn Federal’s commercial real estate loan portfolio to a separate, unnamed, real estate investment fund.

Brooklyn Federal is the parent company of Brooklyn Federal Savings Bank, which has five branches in Brooklyn and Long Island and has $470 million in assets and $411 million in deposits. With Brooklyn Federal in tow, investors will have $10.7 billion in assets, $7.2 billion in deposits and 85 branches in New Jersey, Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island.

Brooklyn Federal agreed to the transaction because of the increasing costs of complying with government regulation, such as Dodd-Frank, according to analysts interviewed by LIBN.

Brooklyn Federal has a wide range of real estate assets in New York City and Long Island, including five Alrose Group properties in the New York area, two properties on First Avenue on the Upper East Side, and formerly, the loan on the distressed Allen Hotel on the Lower East Side. [LIBN]