L.A.'s Imperial Trust Selling Unionbancal $10B Trust Portfolio

Imperial Trust Co. of Los Angeles said Friday that it has an agreement to sell more than $10 billion of trust assets under administration to Unionbancal Corp. of San Francisco.

The trust portfolio includes employee benefit plans, Taft-Hartley plans, custodial accounts, and personal trust accounts.

Unionbancal spokespeople declined to comment on the deal.

Terms were not disclosed. The deal, which is expected to close this month, is subject to regulatory approval.

Norman Creighton, Imperial Bank's vice chairman and chief executive, said his company decided to sell its trust business to focus on servicing midsize businesses in a broad array of industries, according to a spokeswoman.

"Banks are under pressure in their traditional trust businesses," said William R. White of Spectrem Group, a San Francisco consulting firm. "My suspicion would be that (Imperial) decided it can't afford to play the game and be successful and profitable," he said.

Unionbancal Corp. is the holding company for Union Bank of California. It has $32.3 billion of assets and is mostly owned by Bank of Tokyo- Mitsubishi Ltd.

Imperial Trust is a unit of Los Angeles-based Imperial Bancorp, which has $6.4 billion of assets.

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