Opus Bank, which has only been around since 2010, has made great strides toward customer engagement and brand loyalty during that short window of time.
The bank, which focuses on successful entrepreneurs and business leaders who’ve proven their ability and need a partner for growth, has expanded from five banking offices in Southern California to 58 locations in the Western region, including offices in Portland, Seattle, Northern California, and Arizona in five years.
“I would say though that our practice is to set covenant expectations at a relatively aggressive level,” Opus Bank CEO Stephen Gordon said during Monday’s third-quarter earnings conference call, according to Seeking Alpha. “And so as we see companies failing to achieve, if you will, to that standard, I won’t say we’re quick, but we’re not hesitant to downgrade the relationship. And while we don't necessarily expect that to (lead to) culminating credit loss, that aggressiveness does impact the allowance.”
Total assets reached a record $6.2 billion at the end of the third quarter, which represents a 6% increase from the prior quarter and more than 30% growth year-over-year.
“While we are proud of Opus’ industry-leading growth, we remained focused on profitability and maintaining our strong credit culture,’ Gordon added.
Net income increased 39%, to $43 million for the first nine months of 2015.
“We are continuing to see strong deposit growth from multiple sources within Opus, including our commercial and specialty banking divisions,” Gordon said. “Commercial banking added $61 million of low cost deposits during the quarter, and our escrow and exchange divisions grew deposits by an additional $34 million, bringing the total for escrow and exchange deposits to $555 million, with a weighted average rate of only 4 basis points at the end of the quarter. Our fiduciary banking division added $134 million in deposits this quarter, while our correspondent banking division added $59 million.”
During the third quarter, new loan fundings of $638 million contributed a 45% annual growth and 10% quarterly growth in the bank’s originated loan portfolio, which represents significantly higher growth rates than its West Coast regional and high-growth national peers.
Total deposits increased $356 million during the quarter to a record $4.9 billion, resulting in 41% annual growth and 8% quarterly growth. The increase in deposits was driven by contributions from multiple sources, including fiduciary banking, escrow and exchange divisions, other commercial and specialty banking division, and its corresponding banking division, along with its retail banking office network.
“We believe our scalable infrastructure will allow us to continue leveraging our operating platform and support our growth trajectory as we head into 2016 and toward 2017,” Gordon said.