The Private Bank of California in Los Angeles is opening a new office in affluent — and crowded — Orange County and has hired three local bankers to manage the office and drum up business there.
The new location, scheduled to open in Irvine in July, would be the bank's third full-service office and first outside of Los Angeles County, the $597 million-asset Private Bank said Wednesday.
The Private Bank will be competing in a market that is already heavily banked. According to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data, there are 98 branches in the city of Irvine, more than one-quarter of which have opened in the last five years.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) opened two offices in the city in March as part of an
Private Bank is counting on the experience of its newly hired team to help it gain market share.
Two of its new executives, David Cobb and Mary Chilton, are joining the Private Bank from an Orange County branch of Community Bank in Pasadena, and the third, Joseph Mauriello, was most recently a relationship manager in the Newport Beach office of Bank of the West. Each has roughly three decades of commercial lending experience, primarily in Orange County, and Cobb and Chilton have worked together for 22 years.
All three will report to Nick Zappia, executive vice president at the Private Bank.
"David, Joe and Mary have tremendous experience in business and private banking…they make a strong, cohesive team and will be a great asset to the bank," Zappia said in a news release.
Founded in 2005, the Private Bank had its best year ever in 2011, reporting earnings of nearly $2 million for the year, up from just $105,000 in 2010.
