Sale of Orange S&L; to Australians Marks a First

Unity Corp. Ltd. of Sydney announced Wednesday that it has bought Universal Savings Bank for $10.2 million, a sale that marks the first time an Australian firm has acquired an American savings and loan.

Universal Savings, whose headquarters are in Orange, has five branch offices in Orange County and five in the San Gabriel and San Fernando valleys. Its assets total $300 million, making it medium-sized for a California savings and loan.

“It is unusual, but not rare” for foreign investors to own a U.S. savings and loan, said a spokesman for the Federal Home Loan Bank Board in Washington. “This is not the first of its kind.”

In a similar move last spring, Australian industrialist Richard Pratt bought Citizens Bank, a commercial bank in Costa Mesa, for $12 million.

Both purchases reflect the growing interest that Australian investors have shown in the United States in recent years. Direct Australian investment in the United States reached $2.7 billion in 1985, about five times the amount invested in 1981.

Unity has assets of about $400 million and investments in financial services, real estate and manufacturing. Unity officials said the Universal purchase represents only the beginning of their move into the American market for financial services.

“This is a first step for us, something that we have been looking at for some time,” said Chris Blaxland, Universal Savings’ new chairman. “We would like to expand and achieve a reasonably prominent presence (in the United States) as time goes by.”

Founded in 1954, Universal Savings was a closely held concern with 77 shareholders, all of whom have agreed to sell their shares, according to Blaxland. Universal’s former chairman and major stockholder, Frank di Noto, has left the board and will have “no further involvement” with the S&L;, according to a Unity Corp. statement.