SAN JOSE, CA--(Marketwired - Oct 2, 2014) - Bridge Capital Holdings (
With this expansion, Bridge Bank's Southern California office offers a full complement of banking products for small- and mid-market companies. This includes corporate finance and asset-based lending (ABL), technology banking, and other commercial banking products, including employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) lending, in addition to the SBA lending services that have been offered in Orange County and Los Angeles County for several years. Caroline Harkins, senior vice president, is responsible for the region including the development of the banking teams, establishing strategic partnerships and the growth of the client portfolio.
"I'm thrilled to see our professional team of experienced business bankers expand here in Southern California," said Caroline Harkins, Bridge Bank's Southern California regional manager. "Our team is diverse, talented and knowledgeable, and has a proven track record of being sharply focused on the success of their clients," she added.
Bridge Bank's recent hires in Southern California are Jorge Visitacion as Capital Financial Division (CFD) team leader, Elisabeth Schutz as senior vice president, ESOP Advisory Group, and JC Timmons as Corporate Banking team leader. Additionally, Grant Simon has relocated from Bridge Bank's headquarters in San Jose as relationship manager in the Capital Finance Group.
Jorge has almost 20 years of experience in commercial lending and for the past three years co-led East-West Bank's ABL Division in Pasadena where he was responsible for overseeing a portfolio of middle-market companies and was also an integral part of redefining and constructing the bank's ABL infrastructure by implementing guidelines and policies to improve bank-wide processes. Previous to East-West Bank, Jorge spent seven years at Wells Fargo where he rose from AVP and senior sales associate through relationship manager to VP and senior underwriter in the Loan Originations Group of the Wells Fargo Trade Capital Group. Jorge has a B.S. in Business Administration with a Finance specialization from The University of San Francisco's McLaren School of Business.
Elisabeth is responsible for analyzing ESOP loan requests and identifying new ESOP lending opportunities for Bridge Bank throughout the bank's geographic markets. She brings 35 years of banking experience to Bridge Bank and was most recently senior vice president in JPMorgan Chase's ESOP Advisory Group where she was responsible for generating new ESOP lending opportunities with middle-market companies. Ms. Schutz holds a B.A. in Economics and an MBA from The University of California at Los Angeles.
JC will apply almost 15 years of middle-market banking experience for the growth of Bridge Bank's Southern California corporate efforts. Prior to joining Bridge Bank, JC was vice president at Community Bank where he and his team were focused on serving Southern California businesses, including C&I, real estate and ESOP credits. Mr. Timmons also previously owned his own company, Timmons Co. that created strategies for banks and privately-held businesses to be more valuable. He also spent eight years with Spectrum Bank in various leadership positions, focused on the development of the sales team and the middle-market portfolio. JC holds a B.A. from The University of California at Davis and a graduate degree in Banking from The University of Colorado at Boulder.
Bridge Bank's new office is located in Costa Mesa at 3200 Park Center Drive in Suite 350. The office can be reached at 949.438.4000.
About Bridge Bank, National Association
Recognized by The Findley Reports as a Super Premium Performing Bank, and designated "Superior" by BauerFinancial and IDC, Bridge Bank is a full-service professional business bank founded in the highly competitive climate of Silicon Valley in 2001. From the very beginning, our goal has been to offer small-market and middle-market businesses from across many industries a better way to bank. Our technology banking division provides a broad range of financial solutions to venture-backed and non-venture-backed companies, enabling us to meet our clients' varied needs across all stages of business life. It's how we go about doing so that differentiates us from our competition. Bridge Bank's product offering includes growth capital, equipment and working capital credit facilities and treasury management solutions, along with a full line of international products and services and financing secured by domestic, government and foreign receivables. Learn more at the new www.bridgebank.com. Follow us @BridgeBank.
About Bridge Capital Holdings
Bridge Capital Holdings is the holding company for Bridge Bank, National Association. Bridge Capital Holdings was formed on October 1, 2004 and holds a Global Select listing on the NASDAQ stock market under the trading symbol BBNK. Bridge Bank Holding Company was recently admitted to Sandler O'Neill's Class of 2014 "Sm-All Stars" -- a select group of 35 top-performing publicly traded banks and thrifts from throughout the U.S. with market capitalization of up to $2.5 billion. For additional information, visit the Bridge Capital Holdings website at www.bridgecapitalholdings.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain matters discussed in this press release constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and are subject to the safe harbors created by that Act. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the fact that they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts. They often include the words "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "estimate," or words of similar meaning, or future or conditional verbs such as "will," "would," "should," "could," or "may." Forward-looking statements describe future plans, strategies and expectations. Forward-looking statements are based on currently available information, expectations, assumptions, projections, and management's judgment about the Company, the banking industry and general economic conditions. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, nor should they be relied upon as representing management's views as of any subsequent date. Future events are difficult to predict, and the expectations described above are necessarily subject to risk and uncertainty that may cause actual results to differ materially and adversely.
Forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties and actual results may differ materially from those presented, either expressed or implied, in this press release. Factors that might cause such differences include, but are not limited to: the Company's ability to successfully execute its business plans and achieve its objectives; changes in general economic, real estate and financial market conditions, either nationally or locally in areas in which the Company conducts its operations; changes in interest rates; new litigation or changes in existing litigation; future credit loss experience; increased competitive challenges and expanding product and pricing pressures among financial institutions; legislation or regulatory changes which adversely affect the Company's operations or business; loss of key personnel; changes in accounting policies or procedures as may be required by the Financial Accounting Standards Board or other regulatory agencies; and the ability to satisfy requirements related to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other regulation on internal control.
The reader should refer to the more complete discussion of such risks in Bridge Capital Holdings' annual reports on Forms 10-K and quarterly reports on Forms 10-Q on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly revise these forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.