A Southern California car dealer has agreed to sell his majority interest in a local community bank to a Minnesota holding company.
Duke Financial Group Inc., St. Paul, will pay between $4.9 million and $5.5 million to R.E. "Rick" Fritts for his 65% stake in Riverside-based Inland Empire National Bank.
The deal, announced last week, will be the first in which a company outside of Southern California has purchased a majority ownership in a Riverside County institution.
The bank's remaining 245 shareholders will be offered the opportunity to sell their shares in September, said Inland Empire president Candace Hunter Wiest. She said she expects about half of the shareholders to sell their stock.
"Many of our shareholders are approaching retirement age, so this will give them a chance to divest if they want," she said.
Inland Empire, with $61 million in assets, is a 12-year-old institution east of Los Angeles. Mr. Fritts, owner of the largest Ford dealer in the Riverside area, has been a director at Inland Empire since the bank's inception in 1984.
Duke Financial Group, which owns banks in Minnesota and California, could not be reached for comment.
Ms. Wiest said the bank will retain an independent flavor and that there will be few apparent changes.
Inland Empire has enjoyed a turnaround during the past couple of years. The bank posted a $2.3 million loss in 1993 and lost another $190,000 in 1994. But it turned a profit of $427,000 last year and made $137,000 in the first quarter of this year, according to Ms. Wiest.
Duke Financial's holdings consist of $40 million First National Bank of North County, San Marcos, Calif.; $85 million Peoples Bank of Commerce, Cambridge, Minn.; and $45 million State Bank of New Prague, New Prague, Minn.
