Beverly White is head of the firm’s Executive Compensation, Employee Benefits and Taxation Group.  Ms. White has over 30 years’ experience in the areas of employee benefits and taxation, with over 20 years’ devoted almost exclusively to working with financial institutions and their executives.  Ms. White works closely with our clients in the preparation of executive employment agreements, severance and change in control agreements.  She has negotiated numerous non-compete agreements and releases, and has established hundreds of equity and non-equity incentive plans and nonqualified deferred compensation plans, paying particular attention to tax law requirements, including Section 409A of the Internal Revenue Code.

Ms. White regularly advises compensation committees and boards on various benefits matters from an ERISA, tax, and/or regulatory perspective, including on executive compensation disclosure rules for public companies under the federal securities laws.  She also works with both acquirors and target companies and executives on transaction related benefits issues, including golden parachute calculations and tax planning to avoid golden parachute excise taxes.

She also designs and implements tax-qualified defined contribution plans, having prepared more than 100 employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) on behalf of our publicly-traded and Sub-chapter S clients, and assists clients in implementing employer stock funds in existing 401(k) plans in connection with stock offerings.  Ms. White also represents both financial institutions and benefits consultants in bank-owned life insurance (BOLI) transactions, and has assisted boards in performing BOLI due diligence required by the Interagency Guidance.

As the head of our tax practice and a member of the firm’s opinions committee, Ms. White prepares or reviews the tax opinions issued on all corporate reorganizations and mergers and acquisition transactions for which our firm has served as counsel.


Practice Areas:


Representative Transactions:

  • Northfield Bancorp, Inc. and Northfield Bank, Staten Island, NY, in their acquisition of VSB Bancorp, Inc. and Victory State Bank.
  • Ben Franklin Bank of Illinois, Arlington Heights, IL, in its sale of substantially all of its assets to Corporate America Family Credit Union in a cash transaction valued at approximately $13 million.
  • Northwest Bancshares, Inc., Warren, PA, in its $213.4 million acquisition of MutualFirst Financial, Inc.
  • BSB Bancorp, Inc., Belmont, MA in its acquisition by People’s United Financial, Inc. in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $327 million.
  • Blue Hills Bancorp, Inc., Norwood, MA in a stock and cash acquisition valued at approximately $726 million by Independent Bank Corp.