Bank Closed by feds opens as Zions subsidiary

(Salt Lake Tribune) A failed Southern California bank opened Monday under the name of a Zions Bancorp subsidiary after federal regulators seized it late last week.

Zions' California Bank & Trust bought $1.5 billion of deposits and $1.4 billion in loans from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which asked CB&T and other banks to bid on the assets. The FDIC was appointed receiver of Vinyard Bank by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on Friday.

Terms of the deal weren't released by the banks or the government.

Except for $134 million in brokered deposits, CB&T bought all of Rancho Cucamonga-based Vinyard's deposits. CB&T also took over Vinyard's 16 branch offices.

Vinyard had been hurtling toward demise for a year. Reeling under bad land-acquisition, development and construction loans, it was placed on the FDIC's problem-bank list in July 2008, FDIC spokesman David Barr said.

Vinyard had total assets of $1.9 billion and total deposits of $1.6 billion at the end of March. By comparison, CB&T has more than $10 billion in assets.

Vinyard's branches are mostly in eastern Los Angeles County and western San Bernardino County. CB&T, which has 93 branches hasn't decided yet whether it will keep the 16 offices, senior vice president Steven Borg said.

Original Article