Cardinal Bank was a bank headquartered in

McLean, Virginia McLean ( ) is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfax County in Northern Virginia. McLean is home to many diplomats, military, members of Congress, and high-ranking government officials partially due to its proxim ...

that operated in

Northern Virginia Northern Virginia, locally referred to as NOVA or NoVA, comprises several counties and independent cities in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. It is a widespread region radiating westward and southward from Washington, D.C. Wit ...

. It was a subsidiary of Cardinal Financial Corporation. It operated 3 business segments:

commercial banking A commercial bank is a financial institution which accepts deposits from the public and gives loans for the purposes of consumption and investment to make profit. It can also refer to a bank, or a division of a large bank, which deals with cor ...

mortgage A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law jurisdicions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners to raise funds for any pu ...

s, and

wealth management Wealth management (WM) or wealth management advisory (WMA) is an investment advisory service that provides financial management and wealth advisory services to a wide array of clients ranging from affluent to high-net-worth (HNW) and ultra-high- ...

services. In 2017, Cardinal was acquired by United Bank.

History

Cardinal Financial Services was founded in November 1997 as a bank holding company, with Fairfax attorney and politician John H. "Jack" Rust, Jr. as Chairman. In June 1998, the bank's first

branch A branch, sometimes called a ramus in botany, is a woody structural member connected to the central trunk (botany), trunk of a tree (or sometimes a shrub). Large branches are known as boughs and small branches are known as twigs. The term '' ...

in McLean opened. In July 1998, Cardinal Financial sold 2.6 million shares of stock at an initial price of $10/share. In 1999, Cardinal Financial Services began operating Cardinal Wealth Services as its investment advisory subsidiary. In July 2000, Cardinal Financial purchased Heritage Bancorp of Fairfax for $13.8 million. Cardinal Financial struggled during its first five years of operations, losing a total of $24 million over that time. The complicated administrative structure needed to support its community bank model severely affected the company's profitability. To remedy the company's ills, Rust recruited former George Mason Bank CEO Bernard H. Clineburg to run Cardinal Financial in the summer of 2001. Clineburg took over as CEO in October 2001, following the resignation of founding CEO L. Burwell Gunn. Clineburg immediately collapsed the company's four banking units into one and laid off 33 of the bank's 135 employees. Cardinal also took a $8.3 million write-off on the 2000 purchase of Heritage Bancorp and a $1.7 million loss on a corporate bond from

Worldcom MCI, Inc. (subsequently Worldcom and MCI WorldCom) was a telecommunications company. For a time, it was the second largest long-distance telephone company in the United States, after AT&T. Worldcom grew largely by acquiring other telecommunic ...

. In May 2002, Cardinal raised another $18.5 million with a stock sale priced at $3.50 per share. In July 2004, Cardinal Financial Services bought George Mason Mortgage, LLC from the United Bank-Virginia unit of United Bankshares for $17 million. In May 2009, Cardinal Financial raised $31 million with the sale of 4 million shares of stock at $7.75 each. In April 2010, the company launched a middle school bank in

Fairfax County, Virginia Fairfax County, officially the County of Fairfax, is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is part of Northern Virginia and borders both the city of Alexandria and Arlington County and forms part of the suburban ring of Washington, D.C. ...

. In May 2012, the

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...

concluded an investigation of lending discrimination and said that it did not intend to file a lawsuit against the bank. In October 2012, the company revised an advertisement in the

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after locals confused the company logo with that of the

St. Louis Cardinals The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals hav ...

. In January 2014, Cardinal Financial acquired

Vienna, Virginia Vienna () is a town in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. As of the 2020 U.S. census, Vienna has a population of 16,473. Significantly more people live in ZIP codes with the Vienna postal addresses (22180, 22181, and 22182), bordered approx ...

-based United Financial Banking Companies, Inc., the holding company of The Business Bank, for $51.7 million. In April 2017, United Bank acquired Cardinal Financial for $912 million.

References

{{Reflist, 1 Companies based in McLean, Virginia Banks based in Virginia Banks established in 1997 Banks disestablished in 2017 1997 establishments in Virginia 2017 disestablishments in Virginia Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq 2017 mergers and acquisitions Defunct banks of the United States