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It took more than a year for First PacTrust, which was new to the M&A game, to get banking regulators to approve its deal for Gateway Bancorp. The deal is scheduled to close in two weeks.
August 3 -
Four out of five banks that closed important deals last week did so in four months or less. First PacTrust, which is new to getting M&A approval from regulators, needed 10 months to close one deal and has another pending after more than a year.
July 12
First PacTrust Bancorp (BANC) suffered some growing pains in the second quarter on higher noninterest expenses.
The Irvine, Calif., company reported a loss of $1.1 million, compared with a profit of $1.5 million for the same period a year earlier, First PacTrust said Monday. It primarily attributed the slide in net income to an increase in "expenses relating to growth initiatives."
First PacTrust's noninterest costs rose 66%, to $9.9 million, from a year earlier as costs for salaries and employee benefits, equipment and professional fees and rent for its headquarters climbed. The company also recorded $200,000 in fees for
Noninterest income fell 61%, to $639,000, as First PacTrust recorded a $32,000 loss on its sales of securities, compared with a profit of $1.1 million a year earlier. Net interest income was $8.4 million, up roughly 20% year over year as loans increased 28%, to $9.6 billion.
First PacTrust, which has assets of $1.1 billion, continued resolving legacy problem assets and reduced its nonperforming assets by 23%, to $26.1 million, from Dec. 31. Its provision for loan losses was $279,000, down 38% from a year earlier.
