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coNEJO VALLEY

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E August 2002
:i August2002 ConejoVafleyExaminer
Pacific crest Gapital-a different Lino or oant
by loy Silha
Pacific Crest Capital is the
largest bank headquartered in
either the Conejo or San
Femando Valley. Bu! most peo-
ple have not heard of it. Gary
Wehrle, CEq acknowledges,
"LJnless you're into income
property investing, you would-
abgut $550 million" is a commercial
bank specializing in business lending
primarily real estate lending and SBA
loans. In1993, the bank spun off,from
The Foothill Group and moved its
headquarters to Agoura Hillg an area
where many of the employees
resided. While the branches are in
Beverly Hills and San Diego
Ir"it O
the company provides loans througn:
out Califomia.
The company culture focuses on
retaining quality employees and offer-
ing exceptional customer service. To
Wehrle these go hand in hand. While
most banks talk about service, he feels
his bank walks the talk. Twenty one
of his key employees have been with
the bank for an average of sixten
years. He attributes this to financial
incentives combined with heating
people with the golden rule in mind.
This approach translates into a staff
that is experience4 independent, and
empowened to service customers.
For instance, the bank specializes in
income property loans under $4 mil-
lion, a niche many other benks don't
handle. The bank has closed over 1, 000
loans in the past T-B years. Wehrle
explains that when experienced offi-
cers from Pacific Crest visit a proper-
ty, they can evaluate it without the .
bureaucratic roadblocks that plague
in his office in Agoun Hilts.
larger banks. "If you specialize and
you're intelligent, you can move
quickly, ask the right questions and
say yes or no very quickly." Moreover,
Pacific Crest might approve a loan
that would be rejected elsewhere.
"hrcome property lending is typically
driven by formulas, but if yorr'.u
hands-on like we are, and someone
who really understands real estate
looks at the properly, you can make
loans that aren't quite as driven by
formulas." He calls it "street smarts."
The same philosophy holds true for
SBA loans, where pacific Crest is a
preferred lender, gving it the power
to approve loans faster without gov_
ernmental red tape.
Also, Wehrle depicts this level of serv-
ice in the bank branches. "It's more
like going into your lirirg room. We
don't have teller lines and you would
be sifting and talking to me like this
(at a table), there would be coffee...
We're the old-fashioned hometown,
personalized bank. We're the throw
back to another era, that doesn't exist
an5rmore,"
Although a Conejo Valley branch is
projected for 2003, the bank is becom-
ing more full service now by offering
lines of credit to professionals and
small businesses that do not fall under
the SBA umbrella. In
the Conejo Valley, the
bank is targeting doc-
tors, CPA's and other
professionals who
need credit on a regu-
lar or ryclical basis but
prefer the flexibility of
doing bubiness on a
_ more personal level.
,$ Pacific Crest is consid-
''$ erinS unique ways to
:iT,service these local
accounts, including a
personalized courier
service and cus-
tomized online technolo-
gy. Although the bank staff of g5
includes experiencedloan officers, the
btnk will be hiring to accommodate
demand. The hope is that as small
businessesdiscoverpacific Crest they
will seekfurther banking services.
How successfulis this service-orient-
ed approadr? Second quarter earn-
ings released in |uly, showed a 27"/o
increaseover one year ago. In the last
L8 months, in a sinking stock market,
Pacific
Crest went from $14 to around
$28 a share, up 98%. In the last five
the company'srefurn on equity
J/ears,
has averagedover tS%.
Gary Wehrle thinks the Conejo Valley
offers great growth opportunities,
saying, "ft's a growth corridor; f,re
combination of an affluent, growing
expanding areacoupled with a dearth
of banks that are focused on serwice.'l
But, when asked what he is most
proud of as CEO, Wehrle responds,
"Building a company that is unique in
terms of the culture and its ability to
function in a way that people make
their work lives meaningful. We are a
great placeto work, we don't add any
stress to people's lives and our ctrs-
tomers that deal with us, like us.
lo* many businessescan really say
that?" Perhaps that's his secret to
"knockingyour socksoff."
$