Investors plan new bank
About 20 Spokane-area investors have raised $800,000 to launch a new bank that will have just one branch and high hopes of growth.
Duane Brandenburg, president of the holding company that’s creating the new bank, said he expects state approval within 60 days. “We hope to be open for business by mid-May,” said Brandenburg, who most recently was regional president for Spokane-based AmericanWest Bank. He left that bank in 2005.
The new bank, to be called RiverBank, expects to start with $10 to $15 million in assets, Brandenburg said.
The company published its stock circular Thursday at a board meeting. Brandenburg said the board will take the circular to potential investors to raise that money.
“All of that will be raised by investors in this area,” he said.
The bank’s asset target is $125 million, with a focus on serving a niche of small to mid-sized businesses in Spokane and North Idaho.
“We’re not going to be all things to everyone,” Brandenburg said. Some consumer loans will be approved, “but only as a convenience product for our business customers and their families,” he said.
RiverBank’s investors include the former director of Washington’s Department of Financial Institutions, John Bley, who lives in Olympia; Spokane surgeon Dr. Robert Brewster; developer Steve Schmautz, of SDS Realty; developer Shelly McDowell, of TFB Inc.; attorney Bill Symmes, senior managing partner at Witherspoon Kelley Davenport O’Toole; Tim Welsh, co-owner of Garco Construction; Steve Smart, CEO of Environment West Landscape; and Bill Lawson, president of A&A Construction & Development. Also included are former AmericanWest bankers Dean Bellamy and Steve Utt, and Sharon Colley, who co-founded The Bank of the West in Walla Walla with her late husband, Wes Colley. Wes Colley eventually became AmericanWest’s CEO.
The Colleys’ son, Casey Colley, a property developer and entrepreneur, is also a member of the board of directors. Dewey Weaver, who owns a number of area Host Marriott Corp. franchises, is another investor, said Brandenburg.
Brandenburg said the company will focus on customer service and on becoming a paperless bank through use of processing technology and customer computer services.
Its sole office will be located at 202 E. Spokane Falls Blvd., near the Riverpoint Higher Education Center.
One model the directors are following is that of the Bank of Clark County, in Vancouver, Wash. That community bank has successfully developed a single office and uses nine courier cars to take deposits and handle customer questions.
The trend is toward “boutique” banking for the small-business customer, said Brandenburg. Using fast check processing equipment and computer network transactions, customers can manage their deposits and accounts from their own offices, eliminating the need for branches.
The founders have established the bank as a subchapter-S corporation; as such, the shareholders must be limited to no more than 100, said Brandenburg.
Shareholders should see returns when the bank turns profitable, which Brandenburg estimated would be 18 to 24 months after opening.
A community bank, he acknowledged, is whatever anyone wants to call it. His definition is a bank that puts its priority on local customers and is predominantly owned by community shareholders.