One of Nation’s Top Black-Owned Thrifts : Chairman Buys Control of Family S

A 36-year-old engineer turned businessman has acquired control of Family Savings & Loan, one of the nation’s largest black-owned savings and loans firms, the company announced Friday.

Oliver A. Trigg Jr. paid $1.24 million for a 51% interest in the 39-year-old company, headquartered in the Crenshaw section of Los Angeles. Trigg, who is black, has been Family Savings’ chairman since last May.

Family Savings was entirely owned by the Grant family of Pasadena. The Grants are retaining a minority interest.

The S&L;, which has one branch in Los Angeles and one in Pasadena and assets of $144 million, has been for sale since founder M. Earl Grant died in 1981 and left control of the savings and loan to his wife. The Grant family came close to selling it to hotelier and real estate developer Severyn Ashkenazy, but that 1984 deal fell through amid controversy that Family would then be owned by a non-black.

Albert T. Hudson, president of a black-owned rival, Broadway Federal Savings & Loan of Los Angeles, said Friday, “I’m pleased that it’s being sold to someone in the community.”

Trigg, a Harvard MBA and former engineer with Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, is a newcomer to local banking circles. Since he joined Family Savings, Hudson observed, the savings and loan has become more “aggressive in its lending and savings operation.” Family Savings has increased its number of loan agents to 13 from three during the last year, said Robert Bowdin, president and chief operating officer of Family Savings. “Oliver Trigg has spearheaded the move to become more aggressive,” he said.

Trigg first made a bid for the savings and loan in 1985 but his offer, a combination of cash and securities, was not approved by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, Trigg said Friday in a telephone interview. He joined the board shortly afterward, he said.

Then, he said with a laugh: “Being the smart businessman I am, I built the value of the bank up” from the $2.48 a share he bid in 1985 to the $4 a share he eventually paid.

Trigg, who has been involved in real estate development in Los Angeles, said he wants the S&L; to take an active role in the redevelopment of the Crenshaw area, which has a large black and Latino population. He is also taking steps to expand Family Savings. The savings and loan is acquiring $35 million worth of assets for an undisclosed price from Great American First Savings of San Diego, which is closing its Crenshaw branch.

Grant, an El Monte hog farmer, founded the bank as Watts Savings & Loan in 1949 after he could not get a loan to buy property in Pasadena. It moved to the Crenshaw district in the 1960s. It annually ranks among the nation’s top three black-owned S&Ls.;