Rainier Bancorporation was the
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
-based parent corporation of Rainier National Bank, a
Washington state
Washington (), officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. Named for George Washington—the first U.S. president—the state was formed from the western part of the Washington ...
bank with branches throughout the state. Rainier traced its roots back to the National Bank of Commerce, which was founded by Richard Holyoke in 1889. The name Rainier National Bank was adopted in 1974. Rainier Bancorp expanded into Alaska with the purchase of
Anchorage's People's Bank & Trust in 1983 and into Oregon with the purchase of
Gresham's Mount Hood Security Bank in 1986,
expanding further in Oregon in 1986 with the government-assisted purchase of
Portland
Portland most commonly refers to:
* Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States
* Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...
's failed Lincoln Savings & Loan Association
(not related to the Californian thrift of the same named that failed in 1989).
After a brief bidding war with
First Bank System
First Bank System was a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based regional bank holding company that operated from 1864 to 1997. What was once First Bank forms the core of today's U.S. Bancorp; First Bank merged with the old U.S. Bancorp in 1997 and took the ...
,
Rainier Bancorp. was acquired by
Security Pacific Corporation
Security Pacific National Bank (SPNB) was a large U.S. bank headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was acquired by Bank of America in 1992.
History
On September 1, 1868, Hellman, Temple and Co. opened their first bank branch in Los ...
in 1987 for $1.15 billion in stock.
At the time of its acquisition, it was the second largest bank in the state. After the merger, Rainier Bancorporation was renamed Security Pacific Bancorporation Northwest, and Rainier National Bank was renamed Security Pacific Bank Washington.
Rainier Bank Alaska was renamed Security Pacific Bank Alaska.
Rainier Bank Oregon was merged into recently acquired Oregon Bank to form Security Pacific Bank Oregon.
In 1992, Security Pacific Bank merged with
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
-based
BankAmerica
The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank ...
(now called Bank of America), a deal that was at the time one of the largest bank mergers in history. Federal regulators, however, forced the divestiture of over half of the former Rainier Bank Washington state franchise (having been renamed Security Pacific Bank Washington, N.A. in 1989), as the combination of BankAmerica's
Seafirst
Seafirst Corporation was an American bank holding company based in Seattle, Washington. Its banking subsidiary, Seafirst Bank, was the largest bank in Washington, with 235 branches and 497 ATMs across the state.
Formed in 1929 via the merger ...
subsidiary and Rainier would have given BankAmerica too large a share of the retail banking market in Washington state. While 82 branches were retained and consolidated with Seafirst, 38 were sold to West One Bancorp (now itself merged into
U.S. Bancorp) and 48 to
KeyBank
KeyBank, the primary subsidiary of KeyCorp, is a regional bank headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, and is the only major bank based in Cleveland. KeyBank is one of the largest banks in the United States.
Key's customer base spans retail, small b ...
.
References
External links
* (high resolution binaries; large file sizes)
Defunct banks of the United States
Defunct companies based in Seattle
Banks established in 1889
Banks disestablished in 1987
1889 establishments in Washington (state)
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