Preferred Bank, a downtown Los Angeles bank that focuses on lending to Chinese-American businesses, announced Monday it has completed its acquisition of United International Bank, a small Chinese-American bank in Flushing, N.Y.
The cash deal is valued at $22.2 million. United International Bank had approximately $187 million in total assets, according to bank officials.
United merged into Preferred, and the Flushing office will become a Preferred branch. It is the bank’s first outside of California.
“It gets us into a new and growing market that we’ve not been in before and with a relatively inexpensive price tag,” Preferred Bank Chief Financial Officer Edward Czajka said.
As a result of the acquisition, Preferred Bank will also be able to offer a wider suite of products and can make larger loans for customers, he said.
The acquisition was officially completed on Friday. It was announced in July.
