Preferred Bank Announces Opening of Loan Production Office in Houston, Texas

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 17, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Preferred Bank (NASDAQ: PFBC), (“the Bank”), an independent commercial bank, today announced plans to open a loan production office (“LPO”) in Houston, Texas. The Bank has hired the leader of what is expected to be a larger team of local, experienced lenders in the very near future.

Li Yu, Chairman and CEO, commented, “We are excited about this opportunity for Preferred Bank. The new team will be led by George M. Lee, who will be CEO of Preferred Bank’s Texas operations. Mr. Lee is past CEO of several publicly traded corporations including Metro Corp from 2002 to 2014, then the largest Asian-focused commercial bank in Texas. This LPO allows us to gain entry into a new and growing market in a very cost effective manner and we plan to eventually have full branch operations there. As with nearly all of our de novo expansions, the first step was finding the right personnel. This geographic expansion also allows for further risk diversification within the loan portfolio.”

About Preferred Bank

Preferred Bank is one of the larger independent commercial banks headquartered in California. The Bank is chartered by the State of California, and its deposits are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or FDIC, to the maximum extent permitted by law. The Bank conducts its banking business from its main office in Los Angeles, California, and through eleven full-service branch banking offices in California (Alhambra, Century City, City of Industry, Torrance, Arcadia, Irvine, Diamond Bar, Pico Rivera, Tarzana and San Francisco (2)) and one branch in Flushing, New York. Preferred Bank offers a broad range of deposit and loan products and services to both commercial and consumer customers. The Bank provides personalized deposit services as well as real estate finance, commercial loans and trade finance to small and mid-sized businesses, entrepreneurs, real estate developers, professionals and high net worth individuals. Although originally founded as a Chinese-American Bank, Preferred Bank now derives most of its customers from the diversified mainstream market but does continue to benefit from the significant migration to California of ethnic Chinese from China and other areas of East Asia.