Sunflower Bank, a regional bank based in Dallas, planted a flag in Southern California last month, when it made an official opening of a branch in Century City.
This location will maintain a focus on Los Angeles’ big pool of middle market companies, and also one of the city’s high marquee industries – media, said James Canepa, the regional president for California.
“We see strong potential in a region disrupted with ongoing consolidation, allowing us to gain market share by delivering relationship banking solutions to an underserved middle market client base,” he said.
Veteran bankers Cathie Wachter and Steven Hamilton will helm a Century City team working on media businesses. The team focus on developing loans for talent agencies, entertainment business management groups and the corporate production side. Hamilton also will focus on private banking.
A separate team working in the Century City office will focus on manufacturing and logistics companies.
Sunflower also opened three other locations in Southern California – Woodland Hills, Ontario and San Diego. Sunflower Bank hired Canepa and other top executives in 2024 to develop these Los Angeles area offices.
“We’re focused on the Southwest, essentially Texas, Colorado, Arizona, to California,” said Neal Arnold, chief executive of Sunflower Bank. “When you think about those markets, Southern California is probably the biggest market by a factor of two or three. It’s a big diverse middle market customer base, and that’s what we care about.”
Moving into the market
Sunflower is part of a wave of banks seeking the business of a strong segment of middle market companies doing business in Los Angeles and throughout Southern California. These businesses take in revenue ranging between $10 million to $1 billion, as defined by the advocacy group National Center for the Middle Market, based in Ohio.
Banks that have maintained a presence in Los Angeles for years, such as PNC Bank and BMO Bank, expanded operations in the area to work with this middle market.
Arnold said the Los Angeles middle market was too big to ignore. Sunflower will keep its fleet of California branches small, he said.
“We’ll add as its appropriate,” Arnold said. “We don’t think we have to have a bunch to be successful. We can be small and nimble.”
Middle market businesses may feel ignored and underserved by larger banks, said Canepa. A smaller bank such as Sunflower, with a market capitalization of $1.09 billion, will be more attentive to this middle market, he said.
Sunflower’s parent company, FirstSun Capital Bancorp, reported that it beat expectations for its earnings for its second quarter for 2025. Analysts forecast the bank would earn $0.89 per share, according to financial technology company StockStory. However, the bank reported $0.93 earnings per share.
The bank’s net income was $26.4 million, an 11.9 % increase from $23.6 million in the same quarter in the previous year.
It also reported that a return on average total assets was 1.28% for the second quarter of 2025, compared to 1.2% for the prior quarter.
The bank reported $6.5 billion in loans on June 30. It was an increase of $23.1 million compared to the second quarter of 2025. The increase primarily due to an increase of $31.0 million in residential real estate and $16.6 million in commercial and industrial, according to a FirstSun Capital Bancorp statement.
Sunflower’s performance in the second quarter was part of a good trend for business in U.S. banking, said Kamal Bajoria, managing director of investment banking at Pasadena-based Wedbush Securities.
“(Second-quarter) earnings performance at banks were generally neutral to positive with stable loan pipelines,” he said. “Loan funding was limited as borrowers look for more certainty around tariffs and interest rates.”
