Santa Ana's top news & views blog

Santa Ana's top news & views blog

Tag Archives: fullerton community bank

Santa Ana Mayor is Director of a bank that just sold at a profit

Posted on by Posted in Banking, Fullerton, Miguel Pulido, Santa Ana 6 Comments

Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido has served on the Board of Directors of the Fullerton Community Bank for many years.  He told me last year how proud he was of their long record of success.  Fullerton Community Bank has made money while other banks have lost money.

Just consider what happened to the Santa Ana Business Bank, which was founded by Alfredo Amezcua, a criminal defense lawyer who ran unsuccessfully against Pulido last year.  Amezcua ended up selling the bank at a huge loss to their investors.  He sold the bank for six million, and investors only got about six dollars a share.  The investors initially put in about ten dollars a share, and it bottomed out at $3.50 a share.

Fullerton Community Bank’s mother company, RMG Capital Corporation, on the other hand, has been sold for $50 million dollars – a substantial profit to Opus Bank.  “The boards of directors for Opus and RMG have approved the transaction, which values RMG common stock at $17.47 a share,” according to the O.C. Register.

I reviewed RMG’s stock, and found that it has jumped to a high of $16.65, according to Businessweek, after averaging about $5 for quite awhile.  The RMG investors are going to make out quite well in the sale of their bank.

The news gets even better as “Additionally, concurrent with the close of the transaction, the Opus Community Foundation intends to award grants to local non-profit organizations in the communities served by Fullerton Community Bank,” according to an RMG press release.

In related news, the Voice of OC blog once again proved to be anything but objective, with a ridiculous post that fails to mention that Fullerton Community Bank sold at a profit and that their non-profits are going to be supported by their new owner. Once again the Voice of OC has proved to be just another blog with a chip on their shoulders, not a legitimate news site.

Amezcua’s record in banking and business falls far short of Pulido’s

Posted on by Posted in Alfredo Amezcua, Banking, Business, Development, Jobs, Labor, Miguel Pulido, Santa Ana 10 Comments

Santa Ana mayoral candidate Alfredo Amezcua has been complaining endlessly about job creation and the state of the economy here in Santa Ana. But how did Amezcua fare when he became accountable for millions of investor dollars, when he started the Santa Ana Business Bank?

Take a look at the chart above.  It would appear that Amezcua’s shareholders lost close to half of their investment.  Grandpointe Capital paid them $5.96 in cash per share, according to a press release dated June 18.  Their shares were initially valued at $9.75 when the Santa Ana Business Bank first opened for business.

The same hubris that led Amezcua to believe that he and a Board of Directors with ZERO experience in banking could succeed in that industry now applies to his mayoral race.  He says he can do the job, but can he?  Will he run the City of Santa Ana the way he ran his bank?

I criticized Amezcua and his bank when they opened.  I said it was bad timing and I was right.  Here is what I wrote:

What gives?  Are these people really that confident that they can pull the wool over everyone’s eyes?  Or are they prototypical dumb criminals who will eventually get caught red-handed?  Who knows?  But we do know this – right now is a bad time to be in the banking business.

Amezcua approached me after I wrote that and said that I was welcome to write about him and his family, but I should never write about his bank.  I later got a letter from his lawyer.

But I was right.  And now Amezcua and his shareholders have apparently lost a ton of cash.

Think back to who he selected to serve on his board.  Carlos Bustamante and his twin brother.  Mike Metzler.  Victoria Betancourt.  What made Amezcua think that bunch would succeed in operating a bank?  Ironically I hear that these same former board members are now very peeved with Amezcua.  Apparently they blame him for the bank’s fortunes.

One politician who wanted nothing to do with Amezcua’s bank was Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido.  He didn’t stand in Amezcua’s way, but he said no thanks.  Pulido serves on the board of the Fullerton Community Bank – a very successful bank.  They even made money last year, during the recession.

When you compare how Pulido and his bank have fared over the years to what Amezcua and his pals did to the Santa Ana Business Bank, the contrast is stunning.

Pulido is working hard with our City Council to pull our city out of the current economic doldrums.  They have been able to attract a lot of new development, which means jobs and investment in our city.  Amezcua?  He is opposed to most of that development and is in league with the same Usual Suspects who are suing the City of Santa Ana because one of those projects includes affordable housing.

Go ahead and vote for Amezcua if you want to, but his record in business isn’t good.  Why anyone expects that to change if he becomes our next Mayor is a real mystery.