State Forces Pacific Thrift and Loan to Close

In the state’s first forced bank closure since 1994, the state Department of Financial Institutions revoked the license of Pacific Thrift and Loan, a state official said Monday.

The Woodland Hills bank was racking up operating losses and unable to generate new loans, said Lynn Owen, acting commissioner of the department.

“It was experiencing substantial operating losses and was unable to raise shareholder equity to the statutory requirement,” Owen said.

Affinity Bank of Ventura bought Pacific Thrift and Loan after state regulators turned it over to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Friday. Affinity reopened Pacific Thrift and Loan on Monday and customers were able to do business at the bank’s location at 21031 Ventura Blvd. Affinity assumed responsibility for $106.3 million in insured deposits, nearly all of the failed bank’s total deposits of $108.3 million. Federal law insures deposits up to $100,000 but does not cover any amount over that.

Pacific Thrift, which had 2,600 accounts, had been in financial trouble since 1997, Owen said. Records filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission paint a bleak picture of the bank’s parent company, PacificAmerica Money Center Inc., also located in Woodland Hills. The company reported a net loss of $4.1 million for the quarter ended June 30, compared with income of $4.8 million for the same period last year. And the company was unable to file any financial information for its most recent quarter, ended Sept. 30, according to records from the federal Security and Exchange Commission.

In a statement issued by Pacific America in June, the company issued the following warning to potential investors: “The report of the company’s independent accountants . . . [indicates] that certain matters raise substantial doubt about the ability of the company to continue.”