An advocacy group protesting a proposed acquisition by Irvine-based Banc of California Inc. wants former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to broker a deal and end the dispute.
The nonprofit California Reinvestment Coalition has objected to the bank’s planned acquisition of the Southern California operations of Puerto Rico-based Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, which operates in the U.S. as Popular Community Bank.
The San Francisco-based advocacy group’s objections come with approval pending for the acquisition by the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The organization wants Banc of California to release a plan detailing how it will serve the low-income and ethnic communities that have been served by Popular.
Banc of California is the second largest bank with headquarters in Orange County based on total assets as of the end of March, with about $4 billion. It agreed in April to pay $5.4 million for Popular Community’s 20 retail branches and other operations in California, including $1.1 billion in deposits, $1.1 billion in performing loans, and 60,000 or so accounts.
Banc of California executives have cited support from numerous community groups—including several based in the Latino-American community—and said they plan to continue serving Popular’s customers and neighborhoods.
Villaraigosa and Banc of California officials declined to comment for this article.
Paulina Gonzalez, the San Francisco coalition’s executive director, told the Los Angeles Business Journal she wanted Villaraigosa to help.
The former mayor and labor organizer has been a senior adviser to Banc of California for the past year, and he’s pictured in new advertisements that have gone up around the area in recent weeks.
“We’re going to be calling on the former mayor to put something together,” Gonzalez said. “These are the communities he’s from.”
Gonzalez was executive director of South L.A. nonprofit Strategic Actions for a Just Economy before joining the California Reinvestment Coalition, one of a handful of organizations that successfully lobbied University of Southern California to include more money for affordable housing and other community benefits in a major redevelopment plan.
Gonzalez noted that Villaraigosa helped broker that deal and said she wants him to do likewise in this case.
“He’s been silent on the issue so far, but we’re going to continue to reach out,” she said. “We’re hoping at some point very soon he’ll find a way to bring everyone together.”
Banc of California named Eric Holoman, president of Magic Johnson Enterprises, which invests in redevelopment projects in low-income neighborhoods, to its board about the same time it hired Villaraigosa.
Gonzalez said she was surprised Banc of California hadn’t drawn up a community plan.
“With the bank’s decision to bring on Mayor Villaraigosa and Mr. Holoman, we thought there’d be public commitments,” she said.
James Rufus Koren is a staff writer for the Los Angeles Business Journal, a sister publication of the Orange County Business Journal.
