Banking & Finance: Sterling Financial participates in TARP program

Sterling Financial Corp. (Nasdaq: STSA), the parent company of Sterling Savings Bank, which owns Sonoma Bank, has participated in the Capital Purchase Program of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Sterling sold $303 million in preferred shares through the CPP, which is part of the federal government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.

This makes Sonoma Bank the sixth North Bay Bank to receive funds through the purchase program. Summit State Bank, Exchange Bank, Westamerica, Sonoma Valley Bank and Bank of Marin all sold preferred shares to Treasury in return for capital. Bank of Marin, however, opted to pull out of the program.

Sterling operates more than 175 depository branches in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and California and has loan offices throughout the West. The Sterling family employs 2,481 team members.

As of Dec. 31, 2008, Sterling Financial Corp. had assets of $12.8 billion.

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Redwood Trust Inc. (NYSE:RWT) announced a first-quarter regular dividend of $0.25 per share. The first-quarter 2009 dividend is payable on April 21, 2009, to stockholders of record on March 31, 2009.

“Our cash flows for 2009 after operating and interest expense are expected to be more than sufficient to continue this quarterly dividend through 2009,” said George Bull, Redwood’s chairman and CEO.

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American River Bankshares, (Nasdaq: AMRB) parent company of Santa Rosa-based North Coast Bank announced a first-quarter cash dividend of $0.14 per share payable on April 17, 2009, to shareholders of record on April 3, 2009.

The cash dividend remains unchanged from the cash dividend declared in the fourth quarter of 2008.

In 2008, the company had $7.6 million in profits, ending the year with $63.4 million in capital, and generated 534 new loans, ending the year with $412.4 million in net loans outstanding.

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North Valley Bank hired two senior vice president and commercial loan officers. Chris Roach came to North Valley after working for North Coast Bank for eight years as a commercial lender. He has more than 30 years experience in the banking industry.

Kevin Gross, comes to North Valley via Exchange Bank, where he worked as a vice president and commercial loan officer since 2001. Prior to that he was a branch manager for the same bank for several years and was with National Bank of the Redwoods before that.

In addition, North Valley hired a senior credit analyst. Diana Benedict joined the bank after four years with First Community Bank in Santa Rosa. Before that she was with Exchange Bank as an executive assistant for four years.

Dave Brown, president and chief executive officer of the bank, also announced an expansion of 1,500 square feet of space adjacent to the suite at 100 B St. to accommodate the staff additions.

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Tamalpais Bank announced that, for the second year in a row, an independent study of its customers produced scores ranking the financial institution among the nation’s “Star” corporations.

The study, which produces a metric dubbed “Net Promoter Score (NPS),” measures customer satisfaction with a company’s products and services. Tamalpais Bank first took part in the study in 2007.

“What is particularly gratifying,” said Mark Garwood, chairman, president and chief executive officer of the bank, “is, despite all the turmoil and bad press for banks during the year, we continued to receive strong support from our customers. It is a testament to our staff and our emphasis on lasting customer relationships.”

The overall Tamalpais Bank score improved from 64 percent to 65 percent. According to NPS data, the average score for a United States bank is in the low 20s.

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Submit items for this column to Jenna V. Loceff at jloceff@busjrnl.com, 707-521-4259 or fax 707-521-5292.