First National Bank named Dan Mathis, who has three decades in banking, as its new president and CEO.
Mathis, 54, was lured out of forced retirement after his former employer, Imperial Bank, was acquired by Detroit-based Comerica Bank earlier this year.
He replaces Leon Reinhart who abruptly retired in May, shortly after he helped raise $8 million in new capital to boost the bank’s capital.
“I was retired for a couple of months, but at 54, I was not ready to not work,” Mathis said.
Mathis had been president and CEO for Los Angeles-based Imperial for about four years until Comerica purchased it. At the time it was acquired, Imperial had $7.7 billion in assets with 11 offices in California and 20 other cities.
Before that, Mathis was Imperial Bank’s regional manager in San Diego for three years. After being named president in 1996, Mathis retained his home in Rancho Bernardo, returning on the weekends.
Mathis started his career in banking in 1971 when he took a job as consumer loan officer for United California Bank, the predecessor of First Interstate Bank. Five years later he joined California First Bank as a branch manager in Orange County.
He stayed at California First Bank, which merged into Union Bank of California in 1988, for 16 years, the last three of which were in San Diego.
Mathis said First National will continue its strategy to become the premier business bank in San Diego.
“There’s a lot of competition here and we’re now in an economic environment that is soft, so the challenge will be to find a way to help business in San Diego and grow this franchise accordingly,” he said.
Earlier this year the bank disclosed it signed an agreement with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, its regulator, to raise between $8 million to $10 million in additional capital as a result of its fast growth.
While First National expanded, so did its portfolio of problem loans. During the previous quarter, it put aside more than $7 million in loan loss reserves, increasing the total amount of loan reserves to $11.9 million as of June 30.
The reserve balance represents 2.6 percent of the bank’s total loan portfolio of $441 million.
It listed $13.2 million in non-accrual loans, or loans past due more than 90 days and could be future losses. It also reported net charge-offs, or actual lost bad loans, of $1.85 million.
Because of the higher loan reserves, the bank reported a net loss of $2.6 million for the six months.
For 2000, First National reported net income of $1.2 million and total assets of $696 million.
