Signature's ideal buyer? A foreign bank that preserves its independence

In its more than 16 years of existence, Signature Bank in New York has never bought another bank and only occasionally has it floated the idea of being acquired by a larger institution.

So it was a bit surprising to hear CEO Joseph DePaolo on Wednesday describe with such specificity the type of bank he would envision as being the ideal acquirer of the $41 billion-asset Signature.

Responding to a question at an investor conference in New York, DePaolo said that the ideal suitor would be a big foreign bank that would preserve what he has built since co-founding Signature in 2001. Signature has thrived largely by hiring teams of bankers with well-established client relationships, and DePaolo is skeptical that a U.S.-based bank would keep that model intact.

“There’s no bank in the U.S. that could run the institution the way we do — by team, and not by silo,” DePaolo said in an interview after the conference, which was hosted by Barclays. “They would not be able to keep the teams, and they would destroy what we have created.”

That is not to...