The regulatory approval for RBB Bancorp follows approval of the merger by the shareholders of FAIC.
First American International Bank is an overseas Chinese bank headquartered in New York. It is a community development financial institution and a minority depository institution having total assets of $873m, total gross loans of $715m to go along with $630m in total deposits as of 31 December, 2017.
First American International Bank mainly caters to the Chinese-American communities in the Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn boroughs in New York.
The bank offers both consumer and business banking along with loan products and services, and non-deposit insured investment products and services.
The merger transaction between RBB Bancorp and FAIC, which was announced in April 2018, had received approvals from the California Department of Business Oversight and the New York State Department of Financial Services recently.
The Federal Reserve Bank had also granted a waiver to the assets bank holding company from the filing requirements of an application to acquire FAIC and First American International Bank.
Under the merger terms, all the FAIC shares will be exchanged for nearly 3.0 million shares of RBB shares and $33.7m in cash. Existing shareholders of RBB Bancorp will hold around 84.6% of stake in the combined company while FAIC shareholders will own the remaining 15.4% or so stake.
RBB Bancorp and FAIC are looking to wrap up their merger around mid-October 2018, subject to satisfactory meeting of customary closing conditions.
As per the terms of the merger, Raymond Yu, FAIC’s board chairman has been appointed as vice chairman of the boards of RBB Bancorp and Royal Business Bank.
Alfonso Lau, a director of FAIC, was inducted in to the boards of directors of RBB Bancorp and Royal Business Bank.
RBB Bancorp president and CEO Alan Thian said: “The RBB Board, management team and I are very happy to have Mr. Yu and Mr. Lau joining us. We look forward to their expertise and guidance for our combined company.”
