Other First Bank hasn’t failed
When regulators last week seized First Bank of Beverly Hills, a one-branch institution located not in Beverly Hills but in Calabasas, it caused a bit of trouble for the totally separate, St. Louis-based First Banks Inc., which operates 214 offices in five states under the name First Bank, including two locations in . . . Beverly Hills.
Dozens of depositors at the healthy institution started lighting up the phones after the insolvent, Calabasas-based First Bank of Beverly Hills was shut down late Friday.
“We have a lot of confused customers,” said Joel Schwartz, a senior vice president and Southern California regional manager for the St. Louis banking firm, which has 61 branches in California. “And some of the confused customers have become worried and even panicked.”
The failed First Bank actually had been based in Beverly Hills before moving its headquarters to Calabasas in 2000.
The larger St. Louis bank, as part of its expansion in California, purchased the Beverly Hills branch of the Calabasas-based bank in 2006, leaving the now-defunct First Bank of Beverly Hills “no location in Beverly Hills,” Schwartz explained. “They had one, but we bought it.”
All clear, everyone?
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