Union Bank of California.html



This article or section relies largely or entirely upon a single source. Please help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations of additional sources. (December 2008)

Union Bank

Type	Subsidiary (owned by UnionBanCal Corporation)
Founded	1864
Headquarters	San Francisco, California
Key people	Masaaki Tanaka, CEO
Industry	Banking
Employees	Over 10,000[1] )
Website	www.uboc.com

Union Bank is among the 25 largest banks in the United States, based on assets. The bank has 331 branch offices in California,Washington and Oregon, and two international offices. Union Bank is a wholly owned indirect subsidiary of Mitsubishi Financial Group. As of December 18, 2008, Union Bank of California officially changed its name to "Union Bank." ¹

Union Bank was the first major California bank to offer seven-day-a-week banking when it opened its first supermarket branches in 1990; it now maintains 50 in-store branches. The bank has 564 ATMs throughout its tri-state region. It is a member of the Star and CIRRUS systems. CIRRUS, Plus, MasterCard, VISA, Discover, and American Express cardholders can access Union Bank’s ATMs. The bank also belongs to the Star and Maestro point-of-sale networks.

HighMark Capital Management is Union Bank’s investment management subsidiary. The unit manages more than $21.4 billion in assets. The bank offers 22 proprietary mutual funds called HighMark Funds.

History

California origins

In the early 1900s, Kaspare Cohn, a German immigrant with a fabric and clothing business established Kaspare Cohn Commercial & Savings Bank in Los Angeles. In 1918, Kaspare Cohn Commercial & Savings Bank was renamed Union Bank & Trust Company of Los Angeles.

Union Bank & Trust Company of Los Angeles, under the direction of Harry Volk shortened its name to Union Bank in 1958. Union Bancorp, a one-bank holding company, was established in 1967 and acquired by Standard Chartered PLC of London in 1979. In 1967 Union Bank formed its own wholly owned venture capital subsidiary Union Ventures, under the direction of its founder Donald B. Prell.

Bank of Tokyo

In 1880, Yokohama Specie Bank was created in Japan. In 1947, Yokohama Specie Bank became The Bank Of Tokyo, Ltd., and in 1953 it established a San Francisco subsidiary called The Bank of Tokyo California (BOTC).

BOTC acquired Southern California First National Bank of San Diego and renamed it California First in 1975. Although majority-owned by BOTC, it started trading on the Nasdaq exchange. In 1988, California First Bank acquired Union Bancorp, retaining the Union Bank name.²

Mitsubishi Bank

On July 5, 1864 The Bank of California was founded, making it the first incorporated commercial bank in the West. ³ In 1984, The Bank of California became a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi Bank, which had been founded by former samurai Yataro Iwasaki in 1880.

Bank of Tokyo and Mitsubishi Bank merge

In April 1996, The Mitsubishi Bank, Ltd. and The Bank of Tokyo, Ltd. merged in Japan. In San Francisco, The Bank of California and Union Bank consolidated into UnionBanCal Corporation, a bank holding company, and its primary subsidiary Union Bank of California, N.A. With the merger, Union Bank could now trace its history back to the founding of The Bank of California 132 years before. In 1999, UnionBanCal Corporation became a publicly traded company listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:UB).

On Nov. 4, 2008, Mitsubishi Financial Group, its wholly owned subsidiary, The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, and UnionBanCal Corporation announced that MUFG had successfully acquired all of the outstanding shares of Union Bank of California that Mitsubishi Financial Group and its affiliates did not already own. The acquisition of the shares was consummated through a cash tender offer followed by a second-step merger.

References

1. ^ https://www.uboc.com/about/main/0,,2485_2779,00.html
2. ^ 1
3. ^ 1

https://www.uboc.com/about/main/0,,2485_2779,00.html

External links

• Union Bank