UnionBanCal Corporation—which owns Union Bank—announced it’s entered into an agreement to buy the Santa Barbara-based Pacific Capital Bancorp for a reported $1.5 billion.
Pacific Capital operates Santa Barbara Bank & Trust, which runs 47 branches in California, including four in Northern Santa Barbara County—one each in Santa Maria, Lompoc, Los Olivos, and Solvang.
Debbie Whiteley, a spokeswoman for Santa Barbara Bank & Trust, said local bank customers wouldn’t notice any changes until shareholders and financial industry regulators approve the merger, probably by year’s end.
“It’s absolutely business as usual,” Whiteley said. “There’s nothing that’s going to change until, at the earliest, the fourth quarter [of 2012], and most likely there’s not going to be any noticeable difference for some period after that as things are integrated, which takes another several months.”
Whitely said all of the bank locations—which will eventually be rebranded as Union Bank branches—will be looked at carefully for overlap with current Union Bank branches in Santa Maria, Solvang, and Lompoc. However, no decisions will be made on the future of those locations until after the sale closes.
In a prepared statement, UnionBanCal—owned by the Bank of Tokyo—said the acquisition would enable the bank to expand its footprint on the Central Coast, helping it become the leading bank in the Santa Barbara metropolitan area and a top-five institution on the Central Coast.
“Santa Barbara and the Central Coast are very attractive regions for banking and wealth management services, and represent an important geographic expansion for Union Bank,” Union Bank CEO Masashi Oka said in the statement.
Headquartered in San Francisco, Union Bank operates 414 branches in California, Oregon, Washington, Texas, and New York. It held approximately $89.7 billion in assets as of Dec. 31, 2011. Pacific Capital reported a net income of $12.3 million for the fourth quarter of 2011, bringing its total annual income to $70.5 million. In 2010, Texas billionaire Gerald Ford bailed out the then-struggling bank to the tune of $500 million, earning him a 91 percent-stake in company ownership.
This article appears in Mar 22-29, 2012.