Wilshire State Bank grew to become the nation’s largest Korean-American bank by 2009 – until it was upended by a fracas that until now has been largely kept under wraps.
The bank’s chief marketing officer allegedly pressured borrowers into default and sold those loans to his business partners. Not only was he forced to resign, but so was the chief executive, Joanne Kim – who was found to have her own outside business interests with him. The fallout has been severe for the Koreatown institution, which has written down millions in bad loans and is being sued by shareholders. What’s more, it’s under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, while the FBI recently seized loan files from the bank.
Read about this untold story in the Business Journal’s Banking & Finance Quarterly: Risky Business.
