BANKING/FINANCE : Orange Bancorp Directors Boost Their Holdings

Stock in Orange Bancorp has been a hot commodity--mainly among directors.

Director Farouk T. Torki and his wife, Lailia, paid about $31,000 for 10,950 shares, giving them 85,572 shares, or a 5.5% stake in the holding company for Bank of Orange County, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission document.

But they aren’t the only shareholders buying, said David W. Hoffman, president of the Fountain Valley bank.

Each of the six directors and several shareholders have been buying blocks of stock in the last few months, Hoffman said. Several investors have standing orders with brokers to find available stock for them, he said.

Director Philip J. Rocco, owner of Rocco’s Truck, Van and Four-Wheel Drive Wrecking Co. in Santa Ana, received SEC permission to boost his stake above 10%. He now has nearly 14% of the company’s shares, Hoffman said.

“The directors now own about 45% of the company,” Hoffman said. “With options they can exercise, they could easily own more than 50%.”

The president said he has bought about 10,000 shares himself and is looking for more. The company has 1.56 million shares outstanding.

The flurry of buying activity comes about a year after the bank began to emerge from severe problems that almost forced a merger with one of several banks that had sought to buy it. Partial settlements in several longstanding lawsuits in Northern California added nearly $175,000 to the company’s bottom line for the second quarter.

At the end of June, Orange Bancorp had $43.4 million in assets--consisting entirely of the bank’s assets. It posted earnings of $334,000 for the first six months. The bank earned $159,600 for the period.