Colonial American Bank wants to move its headquarters and switch its state charter to New Jersey from Pennsylvania.
The $120 million-asset bank's business shifted to New Jersey after an investor group recapitalized the bank in April 2011, Colonial said in a Dec. 20 letter to the Pennsylvania Department of Banking. Colonial has also asked to move its headquarters to Middletown, N.J., from Horsham, Pa.
The New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance is reviewing the application, agency spokesman Marshall McKnight said. New Jersey "will likely approve the application shortly," Gregory Krauss, a lawyer at Windels Marx Lane & Mittendorf, Colonial's legal counsel, said in a Jan. 10 letter to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
A Pennsylvania Department of Banking spokesman declined to comment. Anthony Giordano, president and chief executive of Colonial, did not return calls seeking comment.
If approved, Colonial would be the first bank to switch to a New Jersey charter from another state since Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank switched from New York in May 2002, McKnight said.
