Southern California Bank to Buy Thrift’s Deposits, Loans : Finance: The assets from Independence One’s last business unit will make the Anaheim firm Orange County’s largest bank.

ANAHEIM — Southern California Bank said Thursday it has agreed to buy nearly all of the remaining loans and deposits of a healthy Mission Viejo thrift that is expected to close up shop in California.

The bank will buy $85 million in business loans and $30 million in deposits from Independence One Bank of California, a federal savings and loan created on the last day of 1988 from the ruins of the failed Beverly Hills Savings & Loan.

The thrift’s corporate and private banking division is the third and final business unit to be sold. Its parent company, Michigan National Corp., has been selling out-of-state operations to concentrate on building its base in its home state.

Larry D. Hartwig, Southern California Bank’s president, would not reveal the purchase price, saying it would probably be disclosed in a few months, after regulators approve the deal. Industry experts said the going price for such a package is about $5 million.

Hartwig was enthusiastic about the agreement, which would give the bank offices in Laguna Hills and San Diego to add to its 15 branches in Orange and Los Angeles counties. His aim is to establish a regional community banking powerhouse that will serve both consumers and small companies.

“This is exactly the kind of business we’re doing,” he said. “It’s a very clean loan portfolio, mainly owner-occupied real estate loans and lines of credit for small business and the professional market. For a long time, we’ve been the banker to family-owned businesses, so this is a natural fit.”

The purchase also would improve the bank’s ratio of loans to deposits, an important factor in earnings, to 70% of deposits from its current 55% level. Loans, Hartwig said, typically bring in more revenue than securities or other investments that banks make with deposits.

The higher returns from the new loans should add about 20 cents a share, or $1.5 million, to the bank’s annual earnings, he said.

The acquisition is the bank’s fifth in five years and its first since moving its headquarters last summer to Anaheim from Downey. The deal would give it nearly $500 million in loans and other assets, making it Orange County’s largest bank.

Last month, Independence One agreed to sell $205 million in deposits to Glendale Federal Bank and sold a mortgage banking division to a Ford Motor Corp. subsidiary.

Michigan National will keep the thrift charter and probably will move it to its Farmington Hills headquarters outside Detroit, where it may open a new thrift.

Beverly Hills S & L was the first of the state’s larger thrifts to fail in the last decade. Its April, 1985, collapse eventually cost taxpayers about $1.5 billion, making it one of the costlier cleanups in the thrift industry debacle.