Pacific West Bancorp, a small lender based outside Portland, Oregon, is seeking to distance itself from a California company with a similar moniker, PacWest Bancorp, whose shares have plummeted amid the recent regional-banking turmoil.
(Bloomberg) — Pacific West Bancorp, a small lender based outside Portland, Oregon, is seeking to distance itself from a California company with a similar moniker, PacWest Bancorp, whose shares have plummeted amid the recent regional-banking turmoil.
“Recent local and national news reports have highlighted the financial difficulties of a bank with a similar name in California, leading to concerns that PWB may also be facing similar challenges,” West Linn, Oregon-based Pacific West Bancorp said in a statement Thursday. “However, PWB wants to make it clear that it is a separate entity with no affiliation to the California-based bank.”
The company with a similar name, Beverly Hills-based PacWest Bancorp, has sought to calm its own investors, reporting that core deposits have increased since March and confirming it’s in talks with several potential investors after a stock rout made it the new focal point of concern over the health of US regional lenders. Still, its shares plunged as much as 61% Thursday, and are down more than 85% this year.
Meanwhile, the shares of Pacific West Bancorp — a much smaller bank, with a market capitalization of $28 million, compared with PacWest’s roughly $415 million — are holding up much better, with a decline of 3.6% this year.
It’s not the first bank to worry about a case of mistaken identity amid the recent tumult. “We are NOT First Republic Bank,” Thomas Geisel, chief executive officer of Philadelphia-based Republic First Bancorp Inc., wrote in a letter on his company’s website in late March, referring to the troubled San Francisco-based bank taken over by regulators and sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co. earlier this week.
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