Forbes Names Hudson City´s Ronald E. Hermance, Jr. America´s Best Performing Boss

PARAMUS, N.J., May. 15 /PRNewswire/ --

PARAMUS, N.J., May 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Ronald E. Hermance Jr., Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Hudson City Bancorp, Inc. ("Hudson City") , the second largest thrift in the United States, by market capitalization, was recently named one of America's Best Performing Bosses by Forbes magazine. Mr. Hermance was among ten top CEOs in America featured as "having given shareholders the biggest bang for the buck."

According to Forbes, during Mr. Hermance's tenure as head of Hudson City, the Bank's stock performance posted an annualized total return of 29% and an annualized total six-year return of 24%. In fact for the first quarter of 2008, Hudson City announced record earnings for the fourth quarter in a row. Net income increased 24.6% to $88.7 million compared to $71.2 million for the first quarter of 2007. Furthermore, Hudson City's diluted earnings per share increased 38.5% to $0.18 per share for the first quarter of 2008 compared to $0.13 per share for the first quarter of 2007.

"Results for the first quarter exceeded expectations," said Mr. Hermance. "Hudson City received 78% more mortgage applications than the corresponding quarter last year. And, while credit quality continues to dominate the headlines, Hudson City's asset quality remains strong. We never pursued risky loan products such as sub-prime loans, negative amortization loans or loans with high loan-to-value ratios that did not carry private mortgage insurance. With regard to deposits, cumulative growth year to date exceeds $1.1 billion -- a Bank record. Additionally, our average deposits per branch are now $135 million while the national average is $69 million for FDIC-insured institutions. Hudson City also continues to enjoy a significant cost advantage in the marketplace. Our industry-leading efficiency ratio for the first quarter of 2008 was 24.66% and continues to top the 50 largest U.S. banks that as a group, have an average efficiency ratio of over 55%," said Hermance.

Hudson City's performance has not gone unnoticed by Wall Street. Earlier this year, Forbes selected Hudson City as The Best-Managed Bank of 2007. Shortly thereafter, Ronald E. Hermance, Jr. was named Banker of the Year by Jim Cramer's nationally syndicated Mad Money program on CNBC. Hudson City also received top rankings in the Wall Street Journal's 2007 Annual Shareholder Performance Scoreboard. The Wall Street Journal cited Hudson City as the number two bank stock in the country as ranked by a five-year average return of 23.60%.

Hudson City Savings Bank, among the top fifty banks in the United States by asset size, is recognized as The Most Efficient Bank in the country. This enables Hudson City to deliver significant values to customers in the form of higher deposit yields, competitive mortgage rates, and lower fees. Hudson City, the largest savings bank headquartered in New Jersey, also serves customers throughout the surrounding metropolitan area with branches located in Westchester, Fairfield, Putnam, and Rockland counties, as well as in Long Island, Staten Island, and the New Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia. Deposit accounts at Hudson City are FDIC insured to the maximum allowed by law.

This release may contain certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and may be identified by the use of such words as "may," "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "should," "plan," "estimate," "predict," "continue," and "potential" or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. Examples of forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, estimates with respect to the financial condition, results of operations and business of Hudson City Bancorp that are subject to various factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from these estimates. Any or all of the forward-looking statements in this release and in any other public statements made by Hudson City may turn out to be wrong. They can be affected by inaccurate assumptions Hudson City might make or by known or unknown risks and uncertainties. Consequently, no forward-looking statement can be guaranteed. Hudson City does not intend to update any of the forward-looking statements after the date of this release or to conform these statements to actual events.