More than 30 investors have chipped in $36 million in support of a new private bank, and the company”™s founders anticipate raising $9 million more as the bank anticipates a February launch.
Originally organized under the name Foundation Private Bank, Fieldpoint Private Bank & Trust”™s new moniker derives from the town”™s Field Point Road, where its first office is to be located.
The Office of Thrift Supervision approved the bank”™s organization in mid-November.
The bank”™s CEO is Kevin McCabe, an Armonk, N.Y., resident who formerly led a range of operations at JPMorgan Chase. The bank”™s chief operating officer is Kevin O”™Hanlon, a former Merrill Lynch executive.
The bank will launch with 25 employees, McCabe said, and he envisions the company opening other locations, possibly to include Westchester County, N.Y.; New York City; Long Island, N.Y.; and perhaps Florida and California.
Like U.S. Trust, a Bank of America Corp. subsidiary with offices in Greenwich, Stamford and Westport, Fieldpoint will offer deposit, loan, tax and asset management services for wealthy individuals. The banks founders estimate more than 50,000 households in their market territory have assets of at least $1 million.
Such services are also offered by many of the companies cropping up on the resumes of Fieldpoint”™s stakeholders. Those backers include:
Reginald Brack, former chairman of Time Inc.;
Joe Grano, former head of UBS”™ wealth-management division;
Tom Hughes, former head of Deutsche Bank Group”™s asset-management unit;
Jerome Kohlberg, co-founder of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts;
David Komansky, former CEO of Merrill Lynch;
Joe Moglia, CEO of TD Ameritrade;
William Schreyer, former CEO of Merrill Lynch;
Sidney Goodfriend, director of investment banking at Credit Suisse Group; and
Dan Tully, former CEO of Merrill Lynch.
“If you compare us to the big guys, what we bring is more customer flexibility,” McCabe said. “The biggest plus for us in terms of getting started is that we have a constituency with our founding investors that is enviable.”
Chairman Dan Donahue said the company has ambitions befitting its investor roster: an initial public offering of stock within five years. That would not be unprecedented ”“ shares of both Boston Private Financial Holdings Inc. and Chicago-based PrivateBancorp are traded on the Nasdaq.
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Both those banks have become major employers and lenders in their communities ”“ Boston Private has a work force numbering more than 1,000, and had $4.3 billion in loans outstanding in 2006. PrivateBancorp employs about half that number primarily in Chicago and St. Louis and had $3.5 billion in loans outstanding last year.
Boston Private has been in acquisition mode, this month buying its way into the Main Line suburbs west of Philadelphia via a deal for Davidson Capital Management, putting it into competition with Bryn Mawr Trust; and making two investments to gain a foothold in the Pacific Northwest region.
PrivateBancorp, meanwhile, raised $200 million this month through a private placement of stock to support unspecified growth initiatives, possibly to include acquisitions.
Donahue said Fieldpoint can fill a void produced by “big bank mergers” that in his words have seen private banks and wealth managers like U.S. Trust swallowed up by retail giants like Bank of America.
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