The acquisition of Concordia Federal Bank for Savings, Lansing, by Advance Bancorp Inc. is just the ”first step” in that holding company`s plan to grow in the south suburbs, Advance Chairman James A. Fitch said Wednesday. Advance currently owns only one other bank, South Chicago Savings Bank in Chicago.
”A lot of our South Chicago customers have relocated to the south suburbs, and we wanted to buy Concordia to catch up with them,” said Fitch, president of the Illinois Bankers Association in 1981-82.
However, he described Concordia as a ”big bite,” which Advance will have to digest before it considers another purchase.
He said Concordia will remain a thrift subsidiary for now, and added that future acquisitions would include both thrifts and banks.
”We really feel that when it comes to commercial banks and thrifts, it`s a difference without distinction these days,” he said. ”We`ll see how it goes, and think about the decision to convert to a bank at a later date.”
He noted that South Chicago is a savings bank (a hybrid of a thrift and a bank), an idea transplanted from the East Coast by its founder in 1902. That gives it ”a leg in both the commercial banking and the thrift camp.”
Fitch said Advance bought $301.6 million of Concordia`s deposits and about $340 million in assets from the Resolution Trust Corp. Tuesday. Advance can return any of the assets it doesn`t want during the next year under the agreement.
Fitch said his group wanted ”all the local assets we could get.” He described them as primarily residential mortgages from the surrounding area.
Left behind were about $40 million in ”crazy stuff,” according to Fitch. ”We left all the ski lodges and the California condos for the government to handle,” he said.
Fitch said that although Advance`s plans for the future include growth, he doesn`t want the kind of growth Concordia had.
”We want to do the best job we can in our market,” he said. ”We don`t want to go to California to do it. There are deposits here from West Berlin;
you have to wonder how stuff like that occurred.”
Fitch added that he is impressed by the staff at Concordia, which stayed on through more than a year of government conservatorship.
