Taiwan Firm May Buy Universal Savings

Universal Savings Bank said Tuesday that it has agreed tentatively to be sold to a Taiwanese shoe manufacturer.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but sources close to the transaction said it was valued at more than $13 million.

Orange-based Universal Savings, which is owned by Unity Holdings Inc., said it has agreed in principle to sell the seven-branch thrift to Chun Chang, founder of the Tai Lung Plastic Industrial Co. Ltd. in Taiwan.

Chang spokesman Heau Ma said Tai Lung exports about 6 million pairs of women’s shoes to the United States annually. Ma said he did not know why Chang, 50, was buying a thrift, which would be his first.

The deal requires the approval of federal and state regulators, which could take up to six months. Chang, who has a home in Los Angeles, meets all residency requirements, a Universal spokesman said.

Universal, which has two branches in Orange, had assets of $268 million and deposits of $240 million as of Dec. 31. The 36-year-old institution has posted record earnings for the last two years. In 1989, it reported net income of $2.5 million.

Unity, which is owned by an Australian company, has been trying to sell the thrift for the last 18 months. Guardian Savings & Loan in Huntington Beach had tentatively agreed to buy Universal for about $11 million in October, 1988, but the deal collapsed a month later.

The thrift is Unity’s only U.S. holding, “and they really wanted to withdraw from the market and return the funds overseas,” said Lawrence Grill, Universal’s chairman and chief executive officer.

He also said Unity’s management was concerned about increasingly strict financial requirements being imposed on U.S. thrifts.

“The business has gotten tougher, unless you are willing to commit more capital to it,” Grill said.

Universal has about 100 employees. Grill said no layoffs are anticipated as a result of the change of ownership.

Chang’s interest in Universal is the latest chapter in its unusual history.

Unity bought Universal in December, 1986, for $10.2 million. Six months later, state regulators seized the financially sound institution and put it in a conservatorship, alleging that Universal was about to improperly send $10 million in loans to the Australian chairman of Unity.

But a federal court in Los Angeles ended the conservatorship after just a few weeks and returned the thrift to Unity’s control.