Golden Pacific Bancorp: GPB In The News

Press Release

Golden Pacific Bank Opens in Downtown Sacramento

June 30, 2010 09:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Sacramento Calif., - July 1, 2010

As part of their vision to Bring Community Banking to Downtown Sacramento, Golden Pacific Bank, a subsidiary of Golden Pacific Bancorp, opens its first branch in Sacramento at 980 9th Street, at the corner of 9th and J Street on Thursday, July 1, 2010. Located in the Park Tower building, the Golden Pacific Bank lobby offers views of Cesar Chavez Plaza and is primed to serve the entire Downtown Sacramento area.

The Downtown Sacramento branch will feature:

Complete suite of business and personal financial services solutions
Convenient location- easy access from both 9th and J Streets
Validated parking- customers will be able to complete their banking transactions and receive validation from the Park Tower parking garage
Financial education and insight- Golden Pacific Bank will offer instruction and demonstrations for customers on all bank products
Community room access- Golden Pacific Bank’s “Community Room” offers a place for the public hold meetings with free Wi-Fi access
Full mortgage department onsite- Golden Pacific’s lending team is located in the Sacramento branch to offer insight and solutions for residential mortgage needs

In the next 24 months, the Sacramento branch of Golden Pacific Bank and the entire Golden Pacific Bancorp network of banks anticipate lending in excess of $150 million in new commercial and residential loans. As a result, the Sacramento branch of Golden Pacific Bank is well positioned to serve the greater Sacramento area with custom financial solutions.

“Right now, many banks are preserving their capital, limiting the amount they will lend. This is affecting both small businesses, which rely on credit lines to maintain operations, and homebuyers who are having a hard time obtaining a mortgage,” said Golden Pacific Bank President Roy Malone. “This creates a great opportunity for us to step in and meet the needs of healthy businesses and qualified customers.”

The new branch is part of Golden Pacific Bancorp’s network of community banks that also includes 5 Gold Country Bank branches located in Yuba, Sutter, and Butte counties.

About Golden Pacific Bancorp

Golden Pacific Bancorp is a bank holding company headquartered in Sacramento, CA. Golden Pacific Bank is a division of Gold Country Bank and is wholly owned by Golden Pacific Bancorp. Gold Country Bank operates 6 branches in Yuba, Sutter, Butte, and Sacramento counties and has a 24 year history of community banking in Northern California.

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This press release contains statements which constitute “forward-looking” statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which involve the anticipated development and expansion of our business, and our intent, belief or current expectations, and that of our directors or our officers. Because such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, risks related to the local and national economy, our performance and implementation of our business plans, loan performance, interest rates, and regulatory matters.

SNL Financial

The Acquirers

Monday, June 28, 2010
by Christina M. Mitchell

It's no secret that most de novo bank organizers have turned to an acquisition strategy in an environment that has
proven tough on startups.

Thus far, 2010 has yet to produce a single de novo. The most recent, Powhatan, Va.-based New Horizon Bank NA, launched in October 2009, according to SNL data. For those hoping to break into the banking business, obtaining FDIC insurance has proven a key challenge. Several former de novo organizers turned acquirers have cited the insurance problem as a significant factor in their decision to abandon the pursuit of a charter in favor of a deal.

Still, FDIC spokesman David Barr told SNL that the agency never instituted a moratorium on issuing insurance for new banks, instead pointing to economic factors as the reason for the decline. In particular, he said recent groups have struggled with capital raises and revenue projections as well as a requirement for regulators to consider whether the startup would prove a risk to the deposit insurance fund.

For groups that switch to an acquisition strategy, however, the requirements differ, and Barr acknowledged that some may find a change of control approval easier to obtain, though he said he was not aware of the agency's actively encouraging de novo organizers to pursue acquisitions as some have claimed.

But who are the acquirers? As SNL learned in speaking with some of them, their strategies may differ, but all overcame obstacles to bring their business plans to fruition. Sacramento, Calif.-based Golden Pacific Bancorp Inc. began to form in late 2007, as organizers coalesced around an idea to strengthen California's community banking leadership. "We, by nature, are community bankers. We believe that it's important that the community bank model survives, and, frankly, with all of the backlash that's taking place against many of the money-center institutions, we think now is probably one of the best times to be effecting a new multibank strategy," CEO Kirk Dowdell told SNL.

Golden Pacific Bancorp closed on the acquisition of Gold Country Bank NA in April, roughly a year after the group behind the newly created holding company had hoped to launch Golden Pacific Bank. "The delay cost us time, but really probably accelerated our ultimate vision," Dowdell said, noting the benefits of launching an organization with Gold Country Bank's roughly $100 million in assets versus starting from zero.

Originally, Golden Pacific's organizers envisioned pursuing a de novo charter as a platform for an M&A-heavy strategy in which the company would go on to acquire and recapitalize other institutions in the state. By April 2009, however, the group determined that the best strategy would be to buy one of the institutions that they had already identified as a potential acquisition target. "We recognized very quickly that in order for us to assist many of the community banks in California, it didn't make sense for us just to spend time waiting around for a decision out of the FDIC," Dowdell told SNL.

Looking ahead, Dowdell said Golden Pacific plans to expand on Gold Country Bank's quality customer service with a wider variety of product lines and other services. In fact, over the course of the next two years, the holding company intends to pursue a series of community bank acquisitions, providing new capital and product offerings to the targeted institutions, with an initial geographic focus on the northern California counties where Western Sierra Bancorp once operated. Dowdell previously served as a senior executive at Western Sierra, which sold to Umpqua Holdings Corp. in 2006.

Meanwhile, in Bryan, Texas, longtime banker Timothy Bryan said he also intends to focus on familiar territory. Bryan recently oversaw the creation of Bank and Trust of Bryan/College Station, where he serves as chairman and CEO, from the combination of pieces of two different banks in his home market. Bryan previously served as chairman and CEO of First National Bank of Bryan, which sold to Houston-based Franklin Bank SSB in 2007. When Franklin Bank failed in 2008, Bryan and his management team partnered with Del Rio, Texas-based Westex Bancorp Inc. unit Bank & Trust SSB, helping to build branches and bring in assets for the community bank. Soon, Bryan said, the growth started to outpace Bank & Trust SSB's ability to keep up, and the team began looking for options to strike out on their own.

"The FDIC wasn't handing out any more insurance, so that caused us to start looking at a bank we could potentially buy and recapitalize," Bryan told SNL.

After reviewing a couple of potential targets in less attractive locations, the group eventually settled on a deal to recapitalize Bryan, Texas-based Texas Enterprise Bank. They also acquired the assets that they had brought to Bank & Trust SSB, combining them with Texas Enterprise's existing assets to form Bank and Trust of Bryan/College Park.

Today, Bank and Trust of Bryan/College Park increasingly resembles the old First National Bank of Bryan, as longtime customers are eager to move with the old bank's management team, Bryan told SNL. The new bank started with about $170 million in assets at Jan. 1, but has since grown to about $225 million in assets and is expected to reach between $250 million and $260 million in assets by year's end. "At some point in time, that's all going to slow down, but right now we're busy just moving over good business that we've banked for a long, long time," Bryan said. In Colorado Springs, Colo., the organizers behind Central Bancorp Inc. also plan to work with the customers they know, though the relationships may have started in one of the company's other businesses. The newly formed bank holding company acquired Clayton, N.M.-based Farmers &
Stockmens Bank in November 2009, after reaching an impasse with the FDIC on the group's plans to form de novo Central Bank & Trust, said Scott Yeoman, a Central Bancorp organizer who now serves as chairman and CEO of Farmers & Stockmens Bank. The group also acquired an inactive bank charter that allowed the New Mexico-based Farmers & Stockmens Bank to add a branch in Colorado.

The original idea for Central Bank & Trust formed as the group's various shareholders sought to create synergies with their existing financial services businesses. In addition to Farmers and Stockmens Bank, which is known as Central Bank & Trust in Colorado Springs, Central Bancorp operates wealth management and mortgage banking businesses. The company also works hand in hand with a nonbank holding company owned by the same shareholder group that operates two insurance agencies and several investment entities.

"Almost no other community bank here has trust powers, has wealth management capabilities, has an insurance agency, so we're very, very different in that regard," Yeoman told SNL. "We're sort of like the national players, but we're local and, simply put, our strategy is to accentuate that and deepen those customer relationships across not just the banking side of it, but all of the other businesses."

Caroline Kerr, Mac Mathews and Sebastian Hindman contributed to this report.

Press Release

Golden Pacific Bancorp, Inc. Completes Acquisition of Gold Country Financial Services, Inc. and Gold Country Bank N.A.

Sacramento Calif., - May 4, 2010

Golden Pacific Bancorp, Inc., formed for the purpose of creating a statewide network of community banks in California, received approval from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System on April 15, 2010, to become a bank holding company by acquiring Gold Country Financial Services, Inc, and indirectly Gold Country Bank N.A., both of Marysville CA., pursuant to section 3(a)(1) of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956.

On April 30, 2010, Golden Pacific Bancorp, Inc. successfully closed an all-stock merger with Gold Country Financial Services, Inc., the parent company of Gold Country Bank N.A., headquartered in Marysville, California, in accordance with the regulators’ approval and the Agreement and Plan of Reorganization and Merger by and among Gold Country Financial Services, Inc. and Golden Pacific Bancorp, Inc. dated August 6, 2009. The merger is expected to become effective upon filing with the California Secretary of State on May 3, 2010. Per the agreement, Golden Pacific Bancorp, Inc. will inject $10 million of new capital into Gold Country Bank and open a new branch located at 980 9th Street, Sacramento. The new branch is scheduled to open in June and will operate under the name of Golden Pacific Bank.

Gold Country Bank will ultimately operate as a fictitious business name of Golden Pacific Bank. “With roughly $100 million in assets and 5 branches throughout Butte, Sutter and Yuba counties, this acquisition marks an exciting first step in our plan to create a multi-bank holding company that focuses on the customer, and partners with small to medium sized businesses that operate in our region. We intend to grow Golden Pacific Bancorp via prudent bank acquisitions and organically developing our bank franchises, while maintaining the local brand and culture of excellent customer service. This strategy allows us to increase existing bank products and services while improving efficiencies through technology and centralized operations." stated Kirk Dowdell, CEO of Golden Pacific Bancorp, Inc..

This acquisition will provide existing Gold Country Bank customers access to new products and lending opportunities, including residential and small business lending, treasury management services, and enhanced online banking.

We are extremely fortunate to acquire an organization that has an excellent footprint, a great reputation in the community, and exceptional staff who have a history of delivering quality service. This merger will contribute a significant economic impact in the region. With an infusion of new capital, we anticipate lending in excess of $100 million in new loans over the next few years. We are excited to serve main street businesses and their customers with custom financial solutions." stated Roy Malone, President of Golden Pacific Bancorp, Inc.