Michael Ramirez

Until May 16, Michael Ramirez led the corporate banking group of First National Bank, one of a handful of locally headquartered billion dollar banks. Since then, First National has grown to nearly double its size, with its parent First Community Bancorp’s acquisition of Escondido-based Community Bancorp.

The acquisition calls for Community Bancorp’s flagship Community National Bank to be merged into First National; Community National brings with it nearly $890 million in assets, and an East County presence coveted by First National.

With Community National’s 12 branches, First National will have about $2 billion in assets and 26 branches.

“It adds to our abilities,” says Ramirez, executive vice president of corporate banking. “We’ll have twice the number of locations in San Diego County. What we’ve needed in order to do more business in East County were branch locations; we’ve got those now.”

Ramirez came to First National from U.S. Bank, where he was the managing director of the private banking group in San Diego. He previously worked for First Community Bancorp Chairman John Eggemeyer at Southern California Bank, where he also managed the corporate banking group.

Ramirez says he isn’t fazed by recent reports of a price war among the 30 or so community banks competing for deals. “If you look at our financials, our interest rate spread over cost of funds is about 6 percent, so we’ve pretty much been able to get our pricing but it is very competitive,” he says. “One of the things we have going for us is the ability to do larger deals.”

Although branch networks are often thought of as a necessary investment to bring in consumer loan traffic, Ramirez says a robust branch system pays dividends for business bankers too. “Right now, the closest branch we have to East County is Downtown, so with the merger our clients will find it easier to get deposits to us.”