Irvine-based Plaza Bank has agreed to acquire Bank of Manhattan in El Segundo in deal valued at about $52 million.
Plaza Bancorp has been established as a holding entity that will serve as an umbrella for Plaza Bank, Bank of Manhattan and its holding company, Manhattan Bancorp.
On its own, Plaza has assets of $525 million and two branches, one in Irvine and one in Las Vegas. Bank of Manhattan has assets of $496 million has six branches, all of them in Los Angeles County. Both Plaza Bank and Bank of Manhattan are controlled by Carpenter & Co., a bank-focused private equity firm in Irvine.
Plaza Chief Executive Gene Galloway will serve as chief executive of the combined bank, which will keep its headquarters in Irvine.
Bank of Manhattan President and Chief Operating Officer Rick Sowers will join Plaza as executive vice president.
The newly combined bank is expected to have about $1 billion in assets and about $100 million in equity capital.
Plaza had about $525 million in assets as of Sept. 30, the latest quarterly report available. Bank of Manhattan had about $496 million in assets.
“Looking at our core businesses, you can see that we’re extremely complementary,” said Erich Bollinger, executive vice president and chief banking officer at Plaza. “We’re an Orange County bank, and we’re in Las Vegas, and they are focused on Los Angeles. We a lot of Small Business Administration lending. They don’t have an SBA shop, and now they will have all of our resources on SBA. They are very good at private banking. … And they also have a residential mortgage company. It’s a very nice complementary business.”
Terms of the deal indicate that shareholders of Manhattan Bancorp will receive either $5.59 in cash or about 1.2 shares of Plaza’s common stock per each Manhattan Bancorp share.
Only about 3.8 million of Manhattan Bancorp—about 31% of the total outstanding—are eligible for cash payment.
Plaza shares, which are traded over-the-counter, were valued at about $2.95 at the time the deal was announced.
Plaza has a market capitalization of $50.4 million compared with $41.3 million for Bank of Manhattan.
