Newport Capital Bancorp, LLC Allocates Initial Investment to Assist GreenChoice Bank in Recapitalizing Family Federal Savings

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., July 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Newport Capital Bancorp, LLC ("Newport Capital") announced today that it assisted GreenChoice Bank in the acquisition and recapitalization of Family Federal Savings of Illinois, a 100-year old federal savings association located in the Chicago, Illinois area.  Prior to its recapitalization, Family Federal was designated as a "critically undercapitalized" bank, but is now a "well-capitalized" bank.  Family Federal will be re-branded GreenChoice Bank later this year.  

"This investment is a significant step in advancing Newport Capital's model of coupling qualified bank management with our investment experience in community and minority depository institutions.  We were pleased with the common goals and the focus on socially conscientious activities by the GreenChoice management team and how those goals and activities fit with our minority and community bank investment targets," said John Vasquez, Chief Executive Officer of Newport Capital.

The acquisition of Family Federal was completed through a rarely used method of recapitalizing a mutual savings bank called a voluntary supervisory conversion.  The last time such a transaction was completed in Illinois occurred in the early 1990's.  Gary A. Lax of Luse Gorman Pomerenk & Schick, P.C. acted as Newport Capital's legal counsel on the transaction

MDI Investments, Inc. assisted in bringing this transaction to fruition. "MDI Investments provided corporate finance advisory work as well as assistance in raising capital for the transaction.  GreenChoice was approved by the federal banking regulators to establish a de novo bank, but it was not able to raise the capital required to open that de novo bank.  It was through MDI Investments' 25 years of experience in the community banking space that lead to the unique structure by which the companies came together," said Michael Iannacconne, Chief Executive Officer of MDI Investments, Inc.

MDI Investments is a corporate advisory firm for community financial institutions.  It serves clients throughout the United States, but has a concentration of clients in the central part of the Country.  It assists financial institutions with asset disposition, capital preservation, capital raising and merger and acquisition advisory through his affiliation with Tangent Capital Partners, which is registered with the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) as a broker/dealer and is a member of the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD).

Newport Capital is a minority-owned company that was formed for the purpose of opportunistically recapitalizing banks and acting as an acquisition platform to invest in other financial institutions and asset generation platforms. By increasing earning assets and reducing fixed costs over a period of three to five years, Newport Capital intends to position itself for a sale into the public markets to realize significant capital gains.

Forward Looking Statements

This release contains forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties and are subject to change at any time. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include, but are not limited to, costs related to the proposed tender offer and merger, the risk of failing to meet the minimum tender condition or obtain any required stockholder or regulatory approvals or satisfy other conditions to the transaction, the risk that the transaction will not close or that closing will be delayed, the risk that our respective businesses will suffer due to uncertainty related to the transaction and other risks related to our respective businesses. The forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that are, in some cases, beyond the control of Newport Capital. We caution investors that any forward-looking statements made by us are not guarantees of future performance or events. We disclaim any obligation to update any such factors or to announce publicly the results of any revisions to any of the forward-looking statements to reflect future events or developments, except to the extent required by law.

SOURCE Newport Capital Bancorp, LLC