Pacific West Bancorp tries to avoid a case of mistaken identity

PACIFIC West Bancorp (PWB), 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 on TThursday (May 4). “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 per cent on Thursday, and are down more than 85 per cent this year.

Meanwhile, the shares of Pacific West Bancorp – a much smaller bank, with a market capitalisation of US$28 million, compared with PacWest’s roughly US$415 million – are holding up much better, with a decline of 3.6 per cent 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, 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. BLOOMBERG