Korean company to buy Fort Lee bank
* Hana Financial wants BNB so it can expand in North America.
Hana Financial Group, Korea's third-largest banking company, is seeking regulatory approval to buy a majority stake in a struggling Bergen County community bank that serves Korean-American small-business owners.
If successful, the deal would be the Korean bank's first foray into retail banking in the United States.
BNB Financial Services, holding company for Fort Lee-based BNB Bank, agreed in July to sell up to a 71 percent ownership position to Hana Financial, which plans to use BNB as a platform for growth in the United States and Canada.
By "combining BNB Bank's retail banking capability with Hana's existing corporate banking service, trade finance business and cross-border wire transfer capability, Hana Financial Group will provide its U.S. customers a comprehensive banking business," Hana Financial said in a statement.
BNB's shareholders were notified last week of the pending deal that is under review by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. A closing could come in the first quarter of 2013, subject to regulatory approvals, Daniel Cardone, president of New York City–based BNB Financial, said by telephone on Wednesday.
The stock purchase would be up to $44 million in BNB, which has a main office in Fort Lee and branches in Manhattan and Palisades Park. Seoul-based Hana plans initially to grow at a pace of only one or two branches a year.
"Some of that expansion will be within Bergen County," Cardone said. Bergen County has the highest percentage of Koreans of any county in the nation, 6.3 percent, according to the latest U.S. census data.
Hana will compete in East Bergen with other Korean niche players like BankAsiana, Woori America Bank and Nara Bank.
BNB was founded in 1986 in Manhattan by its chairman, Sam C. Chung, as Broadway National Bank. He later moved the headquarters to Fort Lee as many Korean-owned businesses migrated to New Jersey from Manhattan.