Silver State Bancorp, the holding company for Silver State Bank, has expanded in 10 years from a five-person operation to a multi-state financial services provider with more than 260 employees. In September of this year, it acquired Choice Bank of Scottsdale, Ariz. As a result of the merger, the holding company’s consolidated assets now exceed $1 billion.
Corey Johnson, president and chief executive officer of Henderson-based Silver State Bancorp, explained the reasons for purchasing Choice Bank. “We had a loan production office in Arizona with four lenders who were doing great and consistently exceeding our expectations of what they could produce. However, when we generated loans in Arizona, we would have to fund those loans with deposits made in Nevada,” he said. “We were unable to take deposits in Arizona because we weren’t chartered as a bank there. Purchasing a bank gave us a platform to fund the loans out of local deposits.”
Another advantage of purchasing Choice Bank was that it had a portfolio of residential loans. Silver State Bank, which is primarily a commercial lender, gained the expertise of the new Arizona staff, which Johnson hopes will enable it to break into the residential loan market in Nevada.
Silver State Bancorp now operates 10 full-service branches in Southern Nevada through Silver State Bank, as well as two Choice Bank branches in the Phoenix area. Silver State’s latest branch recently opened at 6895 Aliante Parkway in the master-planned community of Aliante in North Las Vegas. The holding company also operates loan production offices in Reno, Salt Lake, Denver, Seattle, Portland, Sacramento and San Diego.
In June, the bank celebrated the opening of its new Central Administration Building, located in Henderson. The $7 million, 30,000-square-foot building houses many of the company’s back-room operations, including loan processing, information technology and compliance offices.
Silver State was recently awarded the Economic Independence Award by the Small Business Administration (SBA) for achieving the highest dollar volume of SBA loans in the state of Nevada for the seventh consecutive year. “Whether the business is a restaurant, a dental clinic or a mortgage broker’s office, we provide quick turn-around time,” said Johnson. “We’re a nationwide preferred lender, which means we can approve our own loans throughout the nation.”
Silver State Bank sponsors a Women’s Business Group, which provides a forum for female business owners and executives to get together for luncheons where they can listen to informative speakers. “Women-owned business is a big market that is often overlooked,” said Johnson. “In addition, women are often the decision-makers within a company, so we want to maintain our connections with them.”
Johnson said plans for the bank’s future include expanding with several new branches. Silver State has purchased five sites in Clark County for additional branches, and Choice Bank has purchased a site in Mesa for another branch, which should break ground in January 2007 and be open by summer. “We try to open up a branch each year, and so far we’ve been right on target, with 10 branches in 10 years,” said Johnson. “If things continue to go the way they are, we’ll look at other opportunities to expand outside of the Nevada marketplace.”