Stephen Gordon is one step closer to returning to banking.
A Gordon-led group has received approval from California’s Department of Financial Protection and Innovation to form Genesis Bank in Newport Beach. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has given the organizers conditional approval for deposit insurance, though the bank must first raise $53.3 million.
Gordon said the capital "has been spoken for," adding that the group could raise up to $59 million.
Gordon
Genesis would bring together many former executives of Opus Bank, which Gordon recapitalized in late 2010.
Jennifer Simmons, who was Opus’s chief operating officer, and Brian Fitzmaurice, who served as chief credit officer, will have the same roles at Genesis. William Han, a former deputy chief financial officer at Opus, will be CFO, while Andres Gallardo, Opus's deputy general counsel, will serve as chief legal and risk officer at the proposed bank.
“We have the benefit of having worked extensively together as a team in the past,” Gordon said. “I am confident that our diverse backgrounds, collective experiences, and broad skills will be a competitive advantage as we embrace this unique opportunity to build a new bank.”
Genesis intends to focus on small business, multi-family and commercial real estate lending in the same Southern California footprint where Opus operated.
Opus, which grew quickly after Gordon's arrival, ran into credit quality issues in 2016 that hampered profitability prior to his
Genesis would be the fourth California bank for Gordon. He sold Commercial Capital Bancorp in Irvine to Washington Mutual in 2006 for just under $1 billion. He also served as chairman and CEO at Fremont General in Santa Monica from November 2007 to September 2008.
Gordon said he briefly considered buying a small bank to serve as a platform on which to build Genesis, but he realized he would be better off starting with a clean slate.
"For the first time in my career, I can actually look at the fact that I have zero loans on my balance sheet at day one," Gordon said.
"I used to think that [starting with no loans] was a disadvantage," he added. "Now, I think it's a huge strategic advantage. There's no dilution around people being distracted cleaning up anything legacy. It's all about what we do next."
