Lender Brings In ‘Suspicious Activity’ Consultant

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Century City’s 1st Century Bank is taking a hard look at its money-laundering policies after federal bank regulators ordered a review.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency recently ordered the commercial lender to hire a consultant to comb through the bank’s suspicious activity reports to see if they provide accurate information.

Banks are required to file such reports to federal authorities whenever they come across transactions that could be fraudulent or linked to criminal activity. For instance, if a bank customer typically deposits $1,000 in cash each day but suddenly deposits $10,000, it could trigger a suspicious activity report.

The banks co-founders include Alan Rothenberg, an L.A. attorney who was also one of the co-founders of Major League Soccer.

The review is just one requirement of a consent order issued against 1st Century in September. Jason DiNapoli, the bank’s chief executive, said the bank is working on regulators’ demands.

“We’re following the letter of the order,” he said. “We’re looking to have that completed as soon as possible.”

Helping the bank with that effort is recent hire J. Scott Green, who now heads 1st Cen-tury’s Bank Secrecy Act compliance programs.

“We’re building an extremely compliant BSA department that will serve us for years to come,” DiNapoli said.

The bank hired Green in May. He was formerly the BSA officer at Century City’s Private Bank of California, which was acquired this summer by Irvine’s Banc of California.


Second Term

Though he’s been Wilshire Bancorp Inc.’s chief executive for not quite three years, Jae Whan Yoo is the longest-tenured chief executive among the three big Korean-American banks in Los Angeles.

Now he’s adding to that run, as Wilshire last week signed him on for a second three-year term. Three-year contracts are common for the chief executives of Korean-American banks.

Yoo, hired in February 2011, has already been in the top spot longer than his counterparts at rivals Hanmi Financial Corp. and BBCN Bancorp. C.G. Kum was hired as Hanmi’s new chief executive in June and Kevin S. Kim has been chief executive of BBCN since March.

Wilshire is days away from closing its acquisition of smaller Koreatown lender Saehan Bancorp.

Community Shake-up

Another former Private Bank of California executive, David Misch, is now leading Pasadena’s Community Bank.

Misch replaced David P. Malone, who had served as Community’s chief executive since late 2008 and had been with the bank for more than a decade.

There was no formal announcement of Malone stepping down or of Misch being hired. Misch, former chief executive at Private, is now listed as interim president and chief executive on Community’s website.

The change comes less than a year after Community’s board named Malone chairman in addition to his executive role. He is no longer listed as a bank board member.

Douglas McEachern, now chairman of the bank, gave no reason for Malone’s departure other than to say he left to pursue other interests and that the board is talking to Misch about becoming the bank’s permanent chief executive.

“We’re hopeful that will happen,” McEachern said.

Malone could not be reached for comment.

Heel Deal

Westwood private equity firm Brentwood Associates this month acquired high-end cobbler Allen Edmonds Corp. from Minneapolis private equity firm Goldner Hawn Johnson & Morrison.

The two firms did not disclose terms of the deal, though the New York Times’ DealBook blog reported the purchase price was $180 million – about $80 million more than Goldner paid in 2006.

Allen Edmonds, based in Port Washing-ton, Wis., makes men’s dress shoes, clothes and leather accessories. It manufactures most of its products domestically. The company is known for customer loyalty, a characteristic of many Brentwood portfolio companies.

C-Suite News

Bill Thorpe has joined CFO Edge, a Pasadena firm that provides outsourced chief financial officer services to businesses. Thorpe, now a partner at CFO Edge, had been CFO of West Coast Materials Inc. in Buena Park. … Joseph Burschinger has joined Guggenheim Investments, part of Los Angeles Dodgers owner Guggenheim Partners, as chief risk officer. The firm is headquartered in New York, but Burschinger will work from the firm’s Santa Monica office. He was previously chief risk officer at downtown L.A. investment firm TCW Group Inc. … Chris Scibelli has joined Century City alternative investment firm Ares Management as a relationship manager. He was formerly a managing director at TCW. … Bradley Nii has joined Chicago investment firm Monroe Capital as a managing partner in its L.A. office. Nii was formerly a managing director at West L.A. investment bank B. Riley & Co.

Staff reporter James Rufus Koren can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 549-5225, ext. 225.