President And CEO Interview: Nara Bancorp, Inc. (NARA) - Alvin D. Kang
August 26, 2010 - The Wall Street Transcript has just published Financial Services & Regional Bank Roundup offering a timely review of the Banking sector. This Special Report contains expert industry commentary through in-depth interviews with public company CEOs, Equity Analysts and Money Managers. Please find an excerpt below.
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Alvin D. Kang has served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Nara Bancorp and Nara Bank since Jan. 20, 2010. Previously, Mr. Kang served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of the bank, and the company since July 28, 2005. He also served as a member of the Interim Office of the President from March 2006 until November 2006. Prior to joining Nara Bank, Mr. Kang served as Executive Vice President, Chief Operating and Chief Financial Officer for Broadway Federal Bank, and as Chief Financial Officer of Broadway Financial Corporation from 2001 to July 2005. Mr. Kang also served in a senior position at Takenaka and Company, an investment banking and consulting firm, and was an Audit Partner at KPMG LLP and at Ernst & Young LLP. He worked with KPMG LLP for 26 years, during which time he served as Lead Partner of the Asian Business Group and Lead Partner on audits of major financial institutions in Los Angeles.
TWST: Please begin with a brief historical sketch of the company and a picture of what you're doing at the present time.
Mr. Kang: The company started back in the late 1980s, 1989, and grew from a one-branch operation in Los Angeles. We did several acquisitions in the late 1990s and 2000 to 2003 in Northern California, and also on the East Coast. So we became a bicoastal operation to the point where today we're about $3.2 billion in assets. We have 20 branches, and we have five in the New York and New Jersey region. And the balance of the branches are in Southern and Northern California, but primarily Southern California.
TWST: You just took over the reins as CEO. Would you give us a brief summary of your background?
Mr. Kang: After college I was in the Army for three years as an officer in the U.S. Army. After that, I joined KPMG and served with them for 25 years, retired as an Audit Partner, and my specialty was in banking and thrift. So I provided audit services for the banking and thrift industry, and subsequent to that worked for a smaller bank in Los Angeles and then became the CFO for Nara Bank (NARA) in 2005. And just this year I was promoted to CEO.
TWST: Would you give me a sense of what investors can expect with you at the helm?
Mr. Kang: I think my focus will be on providing the leadership to our employees and management to really help us to focus on the customer and improve our relationship banking, and just making sure that within the Korean-American banking space, that we come out on top. I believe that we'll be able to achieve those goals.
TWST: Do you expect to continue with the strategy the bank has been using, or do you expect to make changes?
Mr. Kang: I think in the near term, the strategies will be the same. As part of the senior team, I obviously worked very closely with the former CEO. So the near-term strategies are the same. On a longer-term basis, we are trying to not convert but to focus more on relationship banking, and to find additional sources of revenue for the company. So there will be some strategic changes over the long term.
TWST: What kind of changes?
Mr. Kang: Again, it's the focus on relationship banking. We're heavily transaction based. In other words, a lot of our loans, for instance, were CRE loans. That model is probably not going to be our focus; it's going to be more on business relationships that provides the products and services to our business customers, whether it's business loans or deposit services.
TWST: Obviously, it's been a tough time for banks over the last 18 months or so. Tell me a bit about how Nara navigated its way through the downturn?
Mr. Kang: Our focus for the downturn was always to be very aggressive in monitoring, and controlling and resolving our problem assets, and we continue to do that. So I think that we've done a good job in being aggressive in resolving the problem credits, and we've been very transparent on our disclosures so that the investors can see what our progress is on the resolution of the problem credits.
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