California Oaks Planting the Seeds of a Return to Community Banking
They’ve got the vault, the drive-through window, the ATM machine and the furniture. Now all that officials of California Oaks State Bank need is some money and the final government go-ahead, and they will be open for business.
California Oaks State Bank has received preliminary approval from the California Department of Financial Institutions and the FDIC to organize as a corporation to raise at least $5 million through a common stock offering at $10 per share.
Officials hope to have the capital in hand by Dec. 1, receive final regulatory approval and open the institution by the end of 1997.
“With all of the mergers and acquisitions, there might have been a feeling that there was no room for small banks anymore, because they can’t compete with big banks,” said Tony Kourounis, president and chief executive of the proposed bank. “But there are communities all over the United States like Thousand Oaks that are proprietary about their community and feel a need to have their community banks.”
Kourounis, former manager of the main branch of the Bank of the Oaks in Thousand Oaks, is joined on the senior management team by Kevin Jillson and Kenneth Paris. Jillson most recently was chief financial officer of Camarillo Community Bank, and Paris served as chief credit officer of First Citizens Bank of Sherman Oaks.
The 10-member board of directors of the proposed bank includes Chairman Robert Lewis, a former Thousand Oaks mayor and current chairman of the Thousand Oaks Alliance for the Arts; developer Larry Janss; Karsten Lundring, chairman of the Cal Lutheran University Board of Regents; and other residents active in Conejo Valley and Ventura County business and community affairs.
“These are friends and customers that I’ve had business relationships with going back 10 years,” Kourounis said. “I think the people involved are . . . recognized as community-minded people, with significant roots in the community.”
Kourounis said the bank was a group idea, but the birth of the plan goes back to his last days at Bank of the Oaks, where he was employed from 1986 to 1994. In 1994 the bank was purchased by First Interstate Bank, which also bought out the Bank of A. Levy.
“I was offered a position with First Interstate and stayed there until it was acquired by Wells Fargo,” said Kourounis, who served as a middle market representative for the San Fernando Valley region. “Wells Fargo asked if a comparable job was available, would I be interested? That was when I said, ‘This is not where my heart is.’ ”
His heart, he said, was in community banking. So he began talking to Conejo Valley banking customers to get a feel for what they wanted from their financial institutions.
“We want to bring back to banking a bank that offers product for all segments of the marketplace--consumers, senior citizens, business, every aspect of the community,” he said. “We will have a Web site, you can do computer banking with us, home banking, we’ll have a courier service for businesses, you can still bank by mail, we’ll have ATM networks and you are still welcome to come into the branch any time you want.”
Kourounis said getting the bank organized has taken three years, primarily due to the condition of the financial community.
“When the Bank of the Oaks was sold, the timing wasn’t right, because the industry was not at its healthiest,” he said. “The industry at large had troubled banks, and regulators would not have been as responsive and receptive to new bank applications as they are now.”
David Scott, chief examiner for the state Department of Financial Institutions, said the department grants licenses to about 10 new banks each year.
“It’s a very extensive process,” Scott said. “It essentially calls for the development of a very complex and detailed business plan to demonstrate that the organization would be capable of being successful, along with extensive background checks of the directors, organizers and principal officers.”
