First Mariner Bancorp (fka FMARQ)

[jaxstraw]

'Here's how RKJS plans to make First Mariner Bank a 'real viable option'


Sarah Gantz
Reporter-
Baltimore Business Journal
Apr 16, 2014, 7:41am EDT

After a tumultuous two days in court, First Mariner Bank is all but officially in RKJS Bank’s hands.
Robert Kunisch Jr., the president of the Baltimore-area investor group, should be breathing a sigh of relief. Instead, he is planning his next steps.
“Now the nerves have already set in of how quickly can we turn this around and make it a real viable option,” Kunisch said in an interview.
A U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge on Tuesday approved the sale, pending necessary paperwork, of First Mariner Bank to RKJS Bank for $17.7 million. The deal reversed an earlier plan for National Penn Bancshares Inc. to acquire the Baltimore bank.
RKJS’ strategy for reviving First Mariner is to keep the bank’s name (at least for now) and build on its brand as a Baltimore born-and-bred bank. RKJS has said it will invest between $85 million and $100 million to recapitalize First Mariner.
Kunisch recognizes that rebuilding and rebranding a bank without actually changing its name won’t be an easy task. But he credits much of First Mariner’s hardship to its holding company, First Mariner Bancorp (OTCBB: FMARQ).
First Mariner Bancorp filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February and decided to settle its debt by selling off First Mariner Bank. The bank itself was not bankrupt and its members’ money was insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Still, the institution’s financial baggage made it hard to reel in new account holders and effectively market itself because of uncertainty about its financial condition.
“Now the future is pretty clear,” Kunisch said.
More immediately, RKJS will need to focus on getting regulatory approval. The price tag for the bank will go up by $1 million if RKJS does not get approval by April 30. As a condition of its contract, RKJS agreed to push its regulatory approval deadline as far back as July 31. The significance of the deadline is that the buyer can walk away from the deal if it does not get regulatory approval by that date.
RKJS’ ability to get regulatory approval in a timely manner was a sticking point for First Mariner and its creditors. First Mariner originally selected National Penn as the winning bidder largely because the Allentown, Pa., bank was considered a sure bet for getting regulatory approval, since it already runs more than 100 bank branches.

http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/news/2014/04/16/heres-how-rkjs-plans-to-make-first-mariner-bank-a.html