CHULA VISTA, Calif. – Hans Ganz, who earned millions of dollars and the enmity of the credit union movement converting his credit union to a bank, retired yesterday as CEO of Pacific Trust Bank, the one-time Pacific Trust FCU.
Ganz, who headed the institution for 19 years, converted the $220 million credit union to a mutual savings bank in 2000, then took the fledgling MSB public in a 2002 IPO that earned him and the one-time volunteer credit union directors millions of dollars in compensation and stock.
Ganz, who earned $1.7 million in compensation last year, owned 254,000 shares of the bank’s stock, at one time valued at $4 million, but sold most of his stake in the now $880 million bank. He still owns 50,000 shares valued at $750,000, according to the most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The seven volunteer directors who led the conversion also made millions on the deal. Alvin Majors, who was chairman of the credit union board and continues to head the bank’s board, earned $140,000 in compensation last year and owns 77,000 PacTrust shares worth $1.2 million, according to SEC records. Kenneth Scholz, another volunteer director of the credit union, earned $122,650 in director compensation last year and owns 69,000 shares worth $1 million.
Pacific Trust was one of the troubled banks bailed out by the Treasury Department’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, which lent it $19.3 million. The bailout funds were repaid last December after a private placement stock offering raised $60 million in new capital. The Treasury continues to hold warrants to purchase 280,000 shares of First PacTrust Bancorp, the bank’s holding company.
The institution was chartered in 1941 as Rohr Employees FCU to serve the employees of Rohr Aircraft in Chula Vista, Calif. (Rohr, Inc., later became Goodrich Aerostructures Group), It changed its name to Pacific Trust FCU in 1995.
