Opus Bank became the largest commercial bank to be based in Orange County, with a recent move of its official headquarters to Irvine.
Opus had its on-the-books headquarters in Redondo Beach, with executive offices in Irvine, for the past year.
The bank has assets of about $2.2 billion.
The next-largest locally based commercial bank is Pacific Mercantile Bank in Costa Mesa, with about $1 billion in assets (see related story, page 3).
Opus Chief Executive Stephen Gordon led a $460 million recapitalization of Bay Cities National Bank a year ago, when it changed its name to Opus Bank. The bank had five offices and about $280 million of assets at the time.
The bank has grown to 29 offices through acquisitions and new openings in the last year.
Opus Bank acquired Everett, Wash.-based Cascade Financial Corp. and its Cascade Bank in June, a deal that brought 22 offices in the Seattle metropolitan area and boosted its assets to the current level.
Opus Bank expects to complete the acquisition of Fullerton-based RMG Capital Corp. and its savings and loans subsidiary, Ful-lerton Community Bank, later this month. That deal is expected to increase the bank’s assets to about $3 billion.
Gordon has laid out a plan to grow Opus into a regional bank along the West Coast.
Its deal for Cascade Bank was its first acquisition outside Southern California.
