Richard I. Ganulin already is lining up his next bank.
A year since leading the sale of Huntington Beach-based Pacific Liberty Bank to Rancho Santa Fe-based First Community Bancorp for $42 million, the 60-year-old Ganulin is taking aim at starting a business bank in Irvine.
Ganulin was the founder and chief executive of Pacific Liberty, which started in 1999 and had $151 million in assets when it was sold.
Ganulin’s latest venture: Pacific Business Bank Inc., which he hopes to open Dec. 1.
He’s tapped Irvine-based banking consultancy Carpenter & Co. to help with the bank’s state and federal regulatory filings. Pacific Business Bank will focus on small-business lending.
Ganulin, who plans to be chairman and chief executive of Pacific Business Bank, is looking to raise about $28 million in startup funds, according to a state regulatory filing.
About $20 million is set to come from small institutional funds with the rest coming from board members and other investors who kick in a minimum of $100,000 each.
Unlike some startups in recent years, Pacific Business Bank plans to stay privately held. Ganulin said he wants to have tight control over the bank’s strategy.
Pacific Business Bank’s main branch is set for the Square strip mall at Main Street and MacArthur Boulevard. Next door is a Starbucks.
Nearby are high-rise office towers with operations of California Bank & Trust, Wells Fargo & Co. and Smith Barney.
The bank plans to bring borrowers and other clients to the Starbucks to make deals.
“Law firms and banks keep getting into higher and higher buildings,” said Brian J. Halle, president and chief operating officer of the bank startup. “Here, you can have coffee with us to discuss your cash management needs.”
Halle recently resigned as US Bancorp’s top executive in charge of business development in the Western U.S. to join Pacific Business Bank.
He was at US Bancorp for five years. Halle, 40, oversaw a sales staff that called on corporate clients for lending, leasing, letters of credit, trade finance and cash management services.
He previously held a similar post for five years with Union Bank of California, a unit of San Francisco-based UnionBanCal Corp.
Along with Pacific Liberty in Huntington Beach, Ganulin helped build Huntington Beach-based Liberty National Bank from 1981 until it was bought in 1996 by Sacramento-based Commerce Security Bank. He left Commerce Security the following year after another buyout.
Ganulin also has a passion for baseball. He’s a former minor league baseball player who won a Silver Glove award from Sporting News magazine as the best fielding first baseman in the minors. He played with the San Jose Bees, who he helped win the 1967 California League title.
Besides banking heavyweights Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo and Union Bank, Pacific Business Bank is set to join a slew of locally based banks.
Other business banks in formation include Fortis Business Bank in Santa Ana, which plans to tap the county’s growing Hispanic population, and Friendly Hills Bank, which is set to open along Whittier Boulevard in Whittier at the county line.
A Korean-American bank called US Metro is in the works for Garden Grove. It would be the first independent bank in that city.
US Metro’s investors hope to raise $20 million among themselves and their contacts and open later this summer.
Pacific Business Bank board members include Giles Aouizerat, chief executive of Huntington Beach-based Pacific Component Xchange Inc.; former Ossur HF executive Maynard C. Carkhuff, now president and chief operating officer of prosthesis maker Freedom Innovations Inc. of Irvine; Gary Cremo, partner with the Newport Beach office of Raymond James Financial Inc.; and Clare M. Einsmann, executive vice president of United Agribusiness League of Irvine.
