Glendale’s Valley National Bank to Be Acquired by Italian Firm

Valley National Bank, founded 30 years ago in Glendale by a group that included relatives of baseball legend Casey Stengel, said Friday that it has agreed to be acquired by the Italian parent of First Los Angeles Bank for $46.7 million and will be merged into First Los Angeles.

Instituto Bancario San Paolo di Torino of Turin, Italy, agreed to pay $25.67 in cash for each of Valley National’s 1.82 million common shares outstanding.

Before the announcement of the definitive agreement, the thinly traded stock most recently had changed hands Wednesday at $20.50 a share, according to the investment firm of Shearson Lehman Bros., which makes a market in the shares.

The merger, which the companies first proposed March 12, is subject to approval by Valley National’s stockholders and banking regulators.

Valley National, with $235 million in assets, operates two branches in Glendale and one each in Montrose, Burbank, Van Nuys, Toluca Lake and Eagle Rock.

After the merger, those branches would be renamed as branches of First Los Angeles, which was founded in 1972 and acquired by the Italian bank in 1983. It now has about $700 million in assets and eight branches--five in Los Angeles and one each in Beverly Hills, Woodland Hills and Newport Beach.

Valley National was started in 1957 by a group led by John M. Lawson, whose sister, Edna, was married to Stengel, the fabled manager of the New York Yankees and later of the New York Mets. Lawson was the bank’s first chairman and Stengel was an honorary vice president, Lawson’s son, John M. Lawson Jr., said Friday in a telephone interview.

The younger Lawson, a former Valley National executive who remains a director, said Lawson relatives overall hold about 12% of the bank’s stock. Lawson said he personally owns or has voting control of 122,400 shares (6.8%) of the stock and that he plans to vote them in favor of the acquisition.

Lawson’s father died in 1981. Stengel died in 1975, his wife in 1978.