While some Angelenos might be banking on Los Angeles being chosen to host the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, Banc of California will be banking the actual effort.
The Irvine institution revealed last week that it will serve as the commercial bank for Los Angeles 2024, the bid committee working to bring the Olympics and Paralympic Games stateside in eight years.
“This bid, under the stewardship of Mayor Eric Garcetti, Casey Wasserman and Gene Sykes, will benefit Los Angeles’ economy and strengthen our diverse community,” said Chad Brownstein, vice chairman of Banc of California, in a statement.
While we won’t know whether Los Angeles will secure those hosting duties until September 2017, Banc of California also recently announced a service that will definitely be coming to Los Angeles – a new trust division.
Based in West Los Angeles, the division will offer the bank’s trust management services for a range of entities including charitable and standard family trusts and corporate ones as well.
Trust services “fit hand in glove” with Banc of California’s 19 retail and two private banking branches in Los Angeles County, said J. Francisco A. Turner, chief strategy officer for Banc of California.
He added that the division evolved out of the bank’s desire to offer entrepreneurs and private businesses a full suite of products to suit their needs.
“For the bank, it’s also a phenomenal opportunity for fee income,” said Turner, adding that his company is focusing on such revenue to grow the institution this year.
Now is the right time to roll it out because a number of formerly locally owned institutions with trust services have been bought by out-of-town companies or moved their headquarters elsewhere, said the division’s chief, Steven Canup, who previously served as president of NewBridge Capital & Trust in downtown Los Angeles.
“If you’re a $5 million or $10 million trust client, you deserve some direct, personal, local service,” Canup said. “Los Angeles has not been for quite a while a large company city. It’s smaller firms, private businesses, entrepreneurs. We will service a $1 million trust balance with the same diligence as for a $30 million trust, opening up services to an entrepreneur who’s just creating their wealth.”
It also helps that the state and local economies are prospering, Turner said.
“Greater wealth is being created and shifting here,” he said.
Both Turner and Canup emphasized that Banc of California will not require trust clients to also have their investments managed by the bank.
“We can also partner with local investment advisers, family offices and business managers,” Canup said.
Growing to Left
Another bank expanding services in the county is hoping to capture more business from the state’s progressive groups.
New York-based Amalgamated Bank, originally founded in the 1920s by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, is still majority-owned by that union. Its customers include unions, advocacy groups and nonprofits.
The bank, which has a nine-person branch in Pasadena, is eying an eventual presence in downtown Los Angeles near many potential clients, said Amalgamated Chief Executive Keith Mestrich.
As part of the plan to grow in Los Angeles, the bank announced last week it has hired Mike Ibarra to run Amalgamated’s California investment management business out of the Pasadena office, bumping up the head count there to 10.
“Both Northern California and Southern California are important future markets for us,” Mestrich said. “Given the nature of our business in catering to progressive organizations, that is not a business that works in all parts of the country. It certainly works in California.”
Executive Moves
Pasadena’s East West Bancorp Inc. has announced that Chief Operating Officer Julia Gouw will retire at the end of next month, leaving the board as well. … Downtown L.A.-based City National Bank has hired John Hall as senior vice president and division credit manager of the bank’s commercial banking services unit. … First Choice Bank of Cerritos has named Nicole Swain chief banking officer. … DoubleLine Capital in downtown Los Angeles has named Ryan M. Hart senior consultant relations manager. … Century City’s Saban Capital Group Inc. has promoted Fred Gluckman to executive vice president; he will continue as chief financial officer. … John Sheldon has joined West L.A.-based First Beverage Group as president of the firm’s investment banking division. … Wilshire Associates Inc. in Santa Monica has promoted seven executives to managing director: Michael R. Kennedy, Jonathan Miles, Leah Emkin, Saeed Gorbani, Erin Simpson, Alexander Brummeler and Mark Perry.
The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System has appointed Anita V. Pramoda, chief executive of Las Vegas-based health care data analytics firm Owned Outcomes, to its Los Angeles Branch board of directors for a three-year term that began last month.
Staff reporter Marni Usheroff can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 549-5225, ext. 229.
