A senior Bank of America Corp. official in Orange County has left to head up the local arm of a Missouri bank that wants to build its Southern California business.
John Grauten, a former Bank of America senior vice president and OC executive for middle market commercial banking, was named president of Clayton, Mo.-based First Banks Inc.’s Southern California unit.
The local operation is the largest of First Bank’s five divisions. The bank’s other markets include Northern California, Illinois, Texas and Missouri.
Privately held First Bank has roughly $10 billion in assets.
Southern California has seen the fastest growth for First Bank. Regionally, the bank says it has more than $1.4 billion in loans and $1.8 billion in deposits.
OC accounts for about a third of the region’s deposits and nearly $1 billion in outstanding loans, Grauten estimated.
First Bank plans to open 10 to 15 branches a year for the next five years, according to Grauten. The bank has 36 branches and about 325 workers in Southern California.
OC has 10 of the Southern California branches and about a quarter of the work force.
First Bank plans to open branches from scratch or acquire them.
Two years ago, First Bank opened its San Diego branch. A year ago, it bought International Bank of California, adding five branches in Los Angeles County.
Two months ago, First Bank bought the Beverly Hills branch of First Bank of Beverly Hills from Calabasas-based Beverly Hills Bancorp Inc.
“There is an expansion plan for the entire bank, including Southern California, that’s pretty aggressive,” Grauten said. “The commercial side is certainly a key component of the growth engine here, but retail is no distant second.”
First Bank’s Southern California headquarters moved from Woodland Hills to Newport Beach after the retirement of its former head, Gilbert J. Dalmau, who lived in the San Fernando Valley.
Dalmau left to join a group of veteran bankers who wanted to start up their own bank aimed at Hispanic business owners. The Glendale-based bank, Americas United Bank, hopes to raise $22 million to $27.5 million.
Grauten said his move was prompted in part by a Bank of America restructuring.
He said he didn’t plan to leave BofA until he got wind in May of changes that would have involved a possible relocation.
Besides handling middle market commercial banking for OC, Grauten said he was asked to pick up the San Diego market after Robert Tjosvold retired as market president in April.
There was subtle pressure to move from Laguna Niguel to San Diego, he said.
BofA has made shifts to fill the voids.
David Ohanian, who has lived in San Diego for the past four years but worked out of Newport Beach as division sales executive for the bank’s premier banking unit, was given the added job of market president in San Diego.
Ohanian will work out of both offices, according to a BofA spokesman.
Kathryn Collier, who had been the senior vice president and market executive for commercial banking in San Diego, assumed Grauten’s responsibilities in OC. She’ll continue to work from San Diego.
“I wouldn’t want the spin that I went away upset or had bad blood,” Grauten said. “That’s certainly not the case. It was just a business decision that didn’t fit me. It was time for me to step back and look elsewhere.”
Grauten said he was a close confidante of Kim Burdick, president of the OC market for Bank of America and head of its Southland premier banking unit.
“We acted in unison and sought each other’s counsel to leverage the bank’s logo here in Orange County,” Grauten said.
At BofA, Grauten managed the commercial banking of companies with lines of credit from $20 million to several billions. He also oversaw treasury management services and investment banking transactions.
