Orange County has banks targeting Korean- and Vietnamese-American businesses and residents.
Now a business bank is looking to tap the county’s growing Hispanic population. Fortis Business Bank would become the first of its kind in OC.
Carlton Ellis Porter Jr., the proposed president and chief executive of Santa Ana-based Fortis, declined to comment on the bank while it’s still in the organizational stage.
“We don’t want to comment on something for what may be construed as a overstating the record with regulators,” Porter said.
Fortis recently filed with state banking regulators to organize as a state-chartered bank. It also filed with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to line up deposit insurance.
The regulatory reviews are expected to take at least a couple more weeks to wrap up. The bank plans to open in the fall after raising $12 million to $15 million in startup funds.
Fortis shares are expected to be publicly traded.
The bank is close to finalizing a lease to occupy a former Sanwa bank branch at 1666 N. Main St. The site would be its headquarters.
The building is at Main and 17th streets, one of the busiest intersections in Santa Ana. It’s next to the site where developer Michael Harrah plans to build a 37-story office building.
Fortis officials hired Community Bank Ventures, a recently formed bank consultancy in San Juan Capistrano, to help set up the bank. Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido is a Community Bank director.
OC developer Arthur B. Birtcher, head of San Juan Capistrano-based BirtcherAnderson Realty LLC, also is a director of the consultancy. He’s expected to be a Fortis board member.
Porter has a history of running small banks in Southern California.
He was involved in founding an Encino-based bank that targeted the San Fernando Valley’s pharmacists. He also headed First Valley National Bank of Lancaster before Valencia Bank & Trust bought it in 1999.
In the mid-1990s, Porter ran Santa Ana’s Corporate Bank, which was bought by Encino-based CU Bancorp. He also ran the Bank of Yorba Linda in the late 1980s.
Fortis, which plans to focus on small-business lending, has lined up several board members, including:
Isabelle Villasenor, president of Cypress-based Dejon Enterprises Inc. A resident of Corona del Mar, she operates several McDonald’s franchises in Los Angeles and OC, including two at John Wayne Airport.
Manuel J. Ramirez, president of Irvine-based Ramirez International, one of the largest Hispanic-run accounting and consulting firms in Southern California.
Brothers Alfonso Bustamante and Carlos Bustamante. Carlos is a Santa Ana councilman and assistant director of OC’s planning and development services agency. Alfonso is a psychologist.
Alfredo M. Amezcua, president of the Rancho Santiago Community College District. Amezcua is an attorney and community leader in Santa Ana.
Michael D. Metzler, chief executive of the Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce.
Anthony W. Thompson, founder of Santa Ana’s Triple Net Properties LLC, which pools together investors to buy real estate. Thompson is chairman and chief executive of Triple Net.
David Seigle, a founding employee of Costa Mesa-based software maker FileNet Corp.
George L. Pla, chief executive of Los Angeles-based Cordoba Corp., an engineering and construction management company. Pla is former director of Los Angeles-based First American Bank, bought in August by Rancho Santa Fe-based First Community Bancorp.
Big banks are angling for a toehold in the growing market for banking with Hispanics.
Hispanics make up a third of OC’s 3 million-plus residents and are expected to become the majority during the next few decades.
Bank of America Corp., Union Bank of California and Banco Popular have forged strategies to reach Hispanics, some of whom have shunned traditional banks.
Banco Popular, a unit of Puerto Rico’s Popular Inc., recently moved its California bank headquarters to Anaheim from Santa Fe Springs.
All the banks use bilingual tellers. The banks back financial education programs at churches, nonprofits and schools.
The banks also have programs that let Hispanics transfer money securely to family and friends in Mexico and other Latin American countries.
OC has seen several banks targeting ethnic groups open during the past few years.
US Metro, a Korean-American bank, is in the works for Garden Grove. Buena Park-based Uniti Bank was the first bank to form in OC to serve Korean-Americans in 2001.
Other banks recently formed to serve the Vietnamese-American community, including First Vietnamese American Bank and Saigon National Bank, both in Westminster’s Little Saigon.
