UCBH Holdings Inc. in San Francisco plans to enter another Chinese-American market by buying the $164.3 million-asset Pacifica Bancorp Inc. in Bellevue, Wash., for $40.3 million in cash and stock.
The acquisition, announced Tuesday, would also expand the $6.5 billion-asset UCBH's international trade finance business. Pacifica has customers who trade within the Pacific Rim through the ports in Seattle and Tacoma. Pacifica shareholders would receive a combination of about 1.2 million shares of UCBH stock, $16 million in cash, and about $3.6 million from the cash-out of Pacifica stock options.
The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter. Pacifica Bank would be merged into UCBH's United Commercial Bank.
UCBH focuses on Chinese-American communities. In 2002 it bought a Brooklyn branch and $12 million in deposits from Broadway National Bank in New York. This month UCBH opened a second branch in the Chinatown area of Manhattan.
