Security Pacific Opens Unit for Small Business : Focus to Be Firms With Sales of Up to $25 Million

Security Pacific National Bank is arming itself for serious combat for the pocketbooks of small business, a growing market that has long been served primarily by smaller financial institutions.

The bank on Wednesday named Stephen G. Carpenter as vice chairman in charge of running Security Pacific’s new Middle Market Bank, which was formed a little more than a week ago to concentrate on businesses with sales ranging from about $2 million to $25 million.

Security Pacific has three other vice chairmen who head the company’s retail, merchant and business divisions. All four vice chairmen report to Robert H. Smith, president and chief executive of Security Pacific National Bank.

The new Security Pacific push is part of a move by all the big California banks to exploit a rapidly growing segment of business that has been credited with creating many of the economy’s new jobs.

Statewide Approach

“This is one of the most attractive markets in banking today,” said David C. Holman, First Interstate Bank of California executive vice president and divisional manager for Orange County and the Inland Empire.

Holman developed a small business project that was rolled out statewide early this year. First Interstate’s approach is to decentralize decision making and to have experienced senior officers available to make decisions on local business loan applications.

Among big banks, Wells Fargo Bank led the race for the business of small business two years ago when it launched its Business Banking Group. Bank of America in May announced a return to the small-business commitment of its founder, A. P. Giannini, by creating what it calls the Small Business Alliance, a package of discount services including price breaks on publications, payroll service, car rentals and seminars.

At Security Pacific, the target is to boost small-business lending to the $8 billion-to-$10 billion range in five years from about $1.5 billion now, Smith, the chief executive, said.

Sophisticated Services

“It’s something that we haven’t done a particularly good job on,” Smith said. “It’s been something that’s been to some degree gnawing at me for some time now.”

Smith said the Middle Market Bank, which will be a separate organization within Security Pacific, will offer smaller companies the sort of sophisticated financial products that traditionally have been available only to large firms.

Carpenter--a banker for more than 25 years--previously was an executive vice president with Wells Fargo, heading that bank’s middle market operations in Southern California. Carpenter, 49, also was named a member of Security Pacific’s high-level Office of the Bank and of the management committees of both the parent Security Pacific Corp. and the bank itself.

Security Pacific named James A. Robinson, 55, and Daniel F. Wheeler, 42, to executive vice president posts serving the Middle Market Bank.