Byron Webb

At an age where many are getting ready to enjoy retirement, Byron Webb founded the Pacific Beach-based Home Bank of California. Both Webb and the bank are still going strong, and Webb says he has no plans to retire.

“I want to continue our growth till I’m 90 or 100,” Webb says.

Webb started the Home Bank in 1981 with a stake of about $1.25 million and has grown it to an asset size north of $162 million. Home Bank’s genesis was in what Webb describes as a non-insured savings and loan bank called La Jolla Savers that was secured by a pool of first trust deeds.

“We didn’t get any respect so I started the thrift and loan bank (Home) and eventually the tail wagged the dog,” he says.

At first, Home did auto loans, but the California fund that insured thrifts and loan banks went broke, so Webb’s became one of the first T&Ls to qualify for insurance from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. In 1985, the regulations were changed so that Webb’s bank could make loans beyond five years.

“That made all the difference in the world, because we were treated like a real bank,” he says. Today, Home Bank is regulated by the state Department of Financial Institutions and the FDIC. Although it is called Home Bank, Webb’s bank does very little residential lending, preferring to focus on income-producing property, such as industrial, retail and apartments.

“There’s so much competition for the residential and I’d rather get a little higher rate,” he explains.

One of Webb’s pet peeves is the preferential no-tax treatment he says credit unions receive at the expense of commercial banks like his. “Credit unions are in the commercial lending business,” he says. Asked if CUs aren’t just taking business that commercial banks don’t want, he says, “That’s the impression you might have, but we lock horns with them on an industrial building, or warehouse; they’re pushing all the time. They’re competing with us for deals and paying no tax. It ain’t fair.”

Webb estimates that the state is losing $500 million by not taxing credit unions as banks are taxed. “They do everything the banks do, and the public is not-well-informed about that,” he says.