Union Bank isn’t so different from Frontier Bank.
It’s just a lot bigger.
That’s what Union Bank representatives told former Frontier customers and employees Monday, the day branches reopened after a forced sale on Friday.
For months, Everett’s troubled hometown bank struggled under the weight of bad real estate loans. When San Francisco-based Union Bank bought Frontier late last week, the deal was punctuated with questions, most of them some version of: “What now?”
Now comes “business as usual,” Union Bank Vice Chairman and Chief Retail Banking Officer Tim Wennes said Monday, speaking from the building that used to house Frontier Bank’s headquarters in south Everett.
“We are in essence a large community bank,” he said. “We’re relationship-based, we’re service-oriented, we’re involved in the community, and we care about the community.”
Union Bank had 346 bank branches and offices in California, Oregon, Washington and Texas before acquiring Frontier’s 50 branches. The bank has two international offices, and its parent company, UnionBanCal Corp., was bought in 2008 by Japan-based Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.
Wennes said Monday that international ownership doesn’t change Union Bank’s emphasis on community banking on the West Coast.
“We’re headquartered in California,” he said. “We’re an American bank. We maintain the same board of directors we had before we were purchased or acquired.”
He said being owned by the Japanese company provides customers with access to more capital and global financial services. “It’s positive.”
He added: “We view ourselves as a local bank. Decisions are made here — not in Japan.”
Union Bank has sought expansion opportunities in the Pacific Northwest for about two years, he said. The bank had four branches in the Northwest before buying Frontier; now it has 54.
In an effort to make nice with its new customers, Union Bank announced Monday it’s donating $25,000 to the United Way of Snohomish County.
The donation came with a promise from Wennes: “As Union Bank grows so will our participation in the communities we serve.”
United Way had long been a favorite charity of Frontier.
Frontier was the second big purchase for Union Bank in April. It recently acquired $600 million in assets from Tamalpais Bank after the FDIC seized that bank, based in San Rafael, Calif.
The deal
There are a few phrases that stand out in Union Bank’s announcement to shareholders that it bought Frontier — mainly that it acquired “certain assets” and assumed “certain liabilities.”
That includes $2.5 billion in deposits and $3.2 billion in total assets. But Frontier’s failure will end up costing the FDIC more than $1 billion under the terms of a loss-share program.
Union Bank plans to keep all Frontier branches open, but it probably won’t retain all of Frontier’s employees.
Wennes said Monday that employees in customer-service positions will be retained. But he stopped short of other promises, saying “it’s too soon to know” what other jobs will be saved.
Read Amy Rolph’s small-business blog at www.heraldnet.com/TheStorefront. Contact her at 425-339-3029 or arolph@heraldnet.com.
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