Business Description
ierra Bancorp is a California corporation headquartered in Porterville, California,
and is a registered bank holding company under federal banking laws. The Company
was formed to serve as the holding company for Bank of the Sierra, and has been
the Bank’s sole shareholder since August 2001. The Company exists primarily
for the purpose of holding the stock of the Bank and of such other subsidiaries
it may acquire or establish. At the present time, the Company’s only other
direct subsidiaries are Sierra Statutory Trust II and Sierra Capital Trust III,
which were formed in March 2004 and June 2006, respectively, solely to facilitate
the issuance of capital trust pass-through securities. Pursuant to the Financial
Accounting Standards Board’s guidance on the consolidation of variable
interest entities, these trusts are not reflected on a consolidated basis in
the financial statements of the Company. References herein to the “Company”
include Sierra Bancorp and its consolidated subsidiary, the Bank, unless the
context indicates otherwise.
The Bank is a California state-chartered bank headquartered in Porterville,
California. We offer a full range of retail and commercial banking services
primarily in Tulare, Kern, Fresno, and Kings Counties in Central California,
and in select markets in Southern California including Ventura County and the
Santa Clarita Valley. Bank of the Sierra was incorporated in September 1977,
and opened for business in January 1978 as a one-branch bank with $1.5 million
in capital and eleven employees. Our growth in the ensuing years has primarily
been organic, but includes two acquisitions: Sierra National Bank in the year
2000, and Santa Clara Valley Bank (“SCVB”) in 2014. We are the largest
bank headquartered in the South San Joaquin Valley, and plan to expand even
further in 2016 with the acquisition of Coast Bancorp, the holding company for
Coast National Bank, and the purchase of certain deposits and loans from Citizens
Business Bank (see the following section, Recent Developments, for more details
on these acquisitions).
Our chief products and services are related to the business of lending money
and accepting deposits. The Bank’s lending activities include real estate,
commercial (including small business), mortgage warehousing, agricultural, and
consumer loans. The bulk of our real estate loans are secured by commercial,
professional office, and agricultural properties which are predominantly owner
occupied, and we also offer a complete line of construction loans for residential
and commercial development, permanent mortgage loans, land acquisition and development
loans, and multifamily credit facilities. Secondary market services for residential
mortgage loans are provided through the Bank’s affiliations with Freddie
Mac, Fannie Mae and certain non-governmental institutions.